Walter Franklin Horan (1898-1966) was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1942 as representative of the Fifth Congressional District of the State of Washington. He served a total of eleven consecutive terms, from 1943 to 1964, losing the 1964 election to Thomas Foley. He was a member of several sub-committees of the House Appropriations Committee: Agriculture, Legislative, State, Commerce, Justice, and Judiciary, and served as Chairman of the District of Columbia Committee. Horan was a Republican.
Horan was born in Wenatchee, Washington, in 1898. He served in the United States Navy during World War I, and attended Washington State University, receiving his A.B. degree in 1925. He worked as an orchardist in Wenatchee.
The papers in this collection consist of correspondence to and from Walt Horan, interfiled and combined with other manuscripts and printed materials used in his official work. The consist of: government documents, when these were important to his work and to the file for reference and record; pamphlets and similar ephemeral materials, both solicited and unsolicited, issued by government agencies and corporate bodies and organizations; working papers and materials used in the legislative processes on the floor of the Congress and in hearings, including Mr. Horan’s recorded participation and his bills; records of services rendered constituents in their personal and official intercourse with the government, civil and military; communications with constituents through radio, television, and newsletter; and political materials of national, regional, and local concern, including biennial campaigns.
The original arrangement of materials has generally been preserved. Exceptions were made when the functions of an agency or bureau, for example, were modified, transferred, or ceased, or when a more comprehensive arrangement seemed desirable to bring all the papers having to do with same subject into closer proximity to simplify its use.
The outgoing office correspondence constitutes a name-index arranged alphabetically by years and will be useful in certain approaches to the papers. For example, a searcher wishing to examine the known correspondence of a Mr. Brown of Spokane may easily determine that Mr. Horan wrote to him on February 15, 1951, concerning the Rural Electrification Administration. Examination of the file of this agency will produce Mr. Brown’s letter of February 7, 1951, another copy of Mr. Horan’s reply, and attached will be any other correspondence Mr. Horan may have had with other persons or Government agencies in connection with his reply, along with a copy of any printed material which Mr. Horan sent to Mr. Brown.
Series 1: Personal Correspondence and Invitations, 1955-1961
Series 2: Outgoing Office Correspondence, 1943-1964
Series 3: Appropriations. Includes correspondence and supporting documentation:
Subseries 3.1: Appropriations, Agriculture; 1945-1964
Subseries 3.2: Appropriations, Army Civil Functions; 1948-1955
Subseries 3.3: Appropriations, Commerce, Justice, Judiciary, State; 1946-1962
Subseries 3.4: Appropriations, Interior; 1946-1964
Subseries 3.5: Appropriations, Legislative Branch and Public Works, 1949-1964
Series 4: Departmental, 1943-1964
Series 5: Subject files, 1943-1964
Series 6: Legislation, 1943-1964
Series 7: Communications with Constituents, 1945-1964
Series 8: Political, 1942-1964
Series 9: Extension 1, 1942-1951 (first addition to collection)
Series 10: Extension 2, 1943-1964 (second addition to collection)
Series 11: Oversize
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item Description] Walt Horan Papers
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The papers of Walter Franklin Horan, Representative in Congress from the 5th District of the State of Washington, were given to the Washington State University Library in 1964 by Mr. Horan. They were initially processed in July to November of 1965 by Earle Connette. Sally Horan donated additional papers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and these were added to the collection. Between 2006 and 2011, the entire collection was comprehensively rehoused, and the descriptions in this collection guide were expanded to include information at the file level.
Earle Connette processed the first installment of this collection in 1965. Later installments were added to the collection as "extensions," as indicated in the inventory below.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.