The papers of Octave Chanute (1832-1910) span the years 1807-1965, with the vast bulk of the material dating from 1860 to 1910. Chanute spent most of his civil engineering career working on railroad construction. He turned his energies to aeronautical engineering and glider development relatively late in life. Although these papers are principally concerned with the latter part of Chanute's career, there is some material from his career as a builder of railroads, the Chicago stockyards, and a railroad bridge across the Missouri River as well as his contribution to the technique of preserving wooden railroad ties.

The collection centers largely on the period 1890 to 1910 when Chanute was actively involved in glider experiments. At this time, he corresponded with many of the other important pioneers in the development of the airplane. Chanute advised and helped to finance aeronautical experimenters and served as a conduit of information among them. His Progress in Flying Machines, published in 1894, was the first authoritative account of aviation history and established Chanute as an international authority on the history and theory of aeronautics.

The collection consists of correspondence, family papers, articles, patents, photographs, sketches, kite diagrams, plans for Chanute's railroad bridge across the Missouri River, and clippings. Addition I includes a microfilmed thesis on Jefferson College by Earl F. Niehaus. Chanute's father was vice president of the school beginning in 1838.

There are extensive files of correspondence with Louis-Pierre Mouillard, a French pioneer of glider theory, George A. Spratt, whom Chanute served as mentor for various aeronautical experiments and the development of wing pressure testing equipment (found primarily in Addition II), and with Wilbur and Orville Wright . Some of Chanute's other notable correspondents include Clément Ader, William A. Avery, Baden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell, Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel Cabot, Lawrence Hargrave, Augustus Moore Herring, Edward C. Huffaker, Wilhelm Kress, Samuel P. Langley, Otto Lilienthal, Hiram S. Maxim, Hermann W. L. Moedebeck, John J. Montgomery, Thomas Moy, Percy Pilcher, and Albert Francis Zahm.