Focused on Adair County, Missouri, including Kirksville and surrounding areas, this collection encompasses a wide variety of materials from businesses, churches, and organizations. It includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, maps, and more.

Ruth Towne's papers consist of both her home and campus office files and include family records dating from as early as the 1820s, her own personal and professional papers and correspondence, and some of the research for her dissertation on Congressman William Joel Stone, as well as books and articles she wrote over her long teaching career.