This collection documents the Board of Railroad Commissioners and the State Board of Food Distributors in their capacity as ex officio the Montana Trade Commission. The Commission was only concerned with trade and price regulation, not the sanitary and inspection functions of the Board of Food Distributors. The records reflect this.

From 1937 to 1962 the Montana Trade Commission maintained a General Correspondence file with letters filed alphabetically by correspondent, by subject, and by town. Since these overlap, the researcher should look in any which might be relevant. For example, a problem with use of coupons by Buttrey Foods in Butte, might be filed under "Coupons", "Buttrey Foods, Inc.", or "Butte." The largest portion of the correspondence deals with complaints against local retailers and the Commission's investigations and negotiations to resolve the complaints. From 1963 to 1973 this system of filing was changed to a straight chronological system. There is also a small series of Interoffice Correspondence.

The second major series is Hearings, which consists of docket files for public hearings conducted by the Commission. The Commission maintained several numbering systems for dockets which can be confusing. For major topical hearings the form was "#1-50" for the first hearing of 1950. These topical hearings deal with proposed regulations and general pricing policy. For hearings on individual violations of regulations the dockets were simply numbered consecutively, starting with #1 in 1947 and running through #205 in 1972. There is a gap from #188 through #204. These dockets have not been itemized in this inventory, since they are useful primarily for their documentation of the functioning of the agency rather than for the information about a specific retailer.

The third major series of the records are Subject Files from a gasoline price survey conducted in 1955-1956. This segment includes correspondence, survey forms, complaints against oil companies, hearing records, freight tariffs, and related material. The study was used as a model by many other states.

In addition the collection contains Court Records from three court cases (1949-1950); Financial Records (1939-1965), including auditor's reports, budget information, a journal and ledger, and voucher distribution records; Minutes (1939-1960) and agenda (1971); reports (1967-1968); and Miscellany, including lists of licenses issued and lists of food distributors arranged by county.