The documentation on the oldest bale of cotton grown in America includes mostly correspondence tracing the history of the subject bale from its harvest in ca. 1862 through its donation to the Cotton Exchange in 1945. Allegedly grown by Levi Peeden in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, the cotton bale (with several others) came into possession of the First National Bank of West Point (Mississippi). The bank exhibited the cotton at events such as the Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893) and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis (1904). Following the latter event it was sold to a St. Louis firm and later to another concern in that city, Lesser, Goldman & Co. A successor to the latter firm donated the bale to the Cotton Exchange in 1945.

Included in this subject file is correspondence with Mississippi Governor Theodore G. Bilbo and U.S. Senator Nathaniel P. Dial (South Carolina), as well as letters exchanged by the various business concerns involved in transferring and transporting the cotton. In addition to the correspondence there are several typewritten historical sketches of the bale, copies of newspaper clippings, and a photograph of the cotton following its receipt at the Exchange. A pencilled note on the reverse of the photograph indicates that the Exchange donated the bale to the LSU School of Agriculture in 1962.