Description given with photograph: "Howard Hughes tests the Hughes plane. Seattle--Howard Hughes (right), millionaire aviation enthusiast and record holder, shown with Edmund T. Allen, Boeing test engineer, before they made a recent test flight in a Boeing-built Stratoliner. The huge machine was equipped with extra fuel tanks for the test. Hughes did not reveal the reasons for his interest in the four-motored, 30 passenger plane, designed for substratosphere flight."
Materials depict the Union Pacific Railroad Company's railroad tracks that had been damaged during floods in February and March of 1938 in Southern California and Southern Nevada, including by the Los Angeles Flood of 1938. The photographs primarily depict washed out tracks, damaged bridges, and debris.