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Urban planning specialist. Reports, sketches, and other material relating to the development of the Willow Run Bomber Plant area in Wayne County, Michigan, during World War II; studies of the proposed Detroit Civic Center, 1952; also papers concerning his later work as planning director in Santa Clara County, California; letter from Frank Lloyd Wright; and sketchbooks with drawings and watercolors of buildings and scenes in Europe, the United States, and Taiwan; also photographs of Belser.

Construction engineer and Michigan Democratic politician; served terms as Oakland County Drain Commissioner, Michigan State Highway Commissioner, and as Governor, 1941-1942; include correspondence, scrapbooks, appointment books, and assorted miscellanea.

The series in the Van Wagoner collection are Correspondence (1933-1945); Newspaper clippings/Scrapbooks (1930-1933 and 1940-1949); Miscellaneous/Political; and Visual Materials. The collection is largely an accumulation of personal materials from his career as a public service. There is very little of these papers that might be classified as administrative or office files from his years as highway commissioner or his term as governor.