The papers are arranged in three groups: Correspondence, Newspaper Clippings, and Other.

The Correspondence group includes two sections. The first are carbon copies of outgoing correspondence from Mayor Patrick Zielke’s office regarding various city subjects, such as airport, baseball stadium, hotels, Pammel Creek flood project, and the like. There is a small folder of constituent correspondence in this series as well. Many of the letters are routine in nature. The other section consists of carbon copies of outgoing correspondence appointing citizens and council members to various city boards, committees, commissions, and task forces.

Newspaper Clippings were clipped and organized by date by the Mayor and include articles from the La Crosse (Wis.) Tribune 1976; 1988-1989; 1992. Topics include issues of the day and some high school sports articles. Finally, Other includes organizational charts of city departments, 1980; letters from Zielke to city employees who retired, 1981-1991; and declarations from the Mayor’s Office, 1988-1991.

There is no personal or biographical information on Zielke, other than a few editorials he wrote, 1984-1991.