These records were collected and created during the course of a survey of Columbus-area industrial sites undertaken in 1977 under the auspices of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), an agency of the Department of the Interior. The HAER was set up along the same lines as the better known Historic American Building Survey (HABS), also an agency of Interior. The HAER survey focused on industrial and engineering sites and generated measured drawings, photographs; and histories of significant structures and sites relating to the area's industrial past. In 1977 an HAER summer recording team, co-sponsored by Historic Columbus, worked on five major riverfront industries , including the Columbus Iron Works, Eagle & Phenix Mills, Muscogee Mills, City Mills and the Columbus plant of the Bibb Mills. Also surveyed were neighboring companies and structures such as the Empire Mills, Seaboard Railroad Freight Depot, Columbus Manufacturing and the dams and power houses at the City Mills and North Highlands dams.

The collection includes histories written in 1977 by the project historians, Dr. John Lupold and Barbara Kimmelman, a University of Pennsylvania graduate student, along with J. B. Karfunkle, an engineering student at SwarthmoreCollege. It also includes research material related to the histories. The Columbus team produced written histories, professional photographs and measured drawings. In addition there are photocopies of articles used in the research and Sanborn insurance maps (which are held with the other Sanborn maps in the reference collection). An elevation of the entire western façade of Front Avenue from 8th to 14th streets is held at the Historic Columbus Foundation, as are some of the survey photographs. Yet other photos taken by David Sharp and Jet Lowe are at the HAER office inWashington, or in the Library of Congress collection, the final repository of HAER materials.