The Annual Files are primarily records used in compiling the department’s annual reports and for other basic administrative functions. The records include annual reports, correspondence, financial materials, brochures, inventories, copies of legislation, maps, newspaper clippings, policies and procedures, schedules, and Don Sherwood's notes and essays (photocopies).

The records document the administration and activities of the department as represented in its annual reports. Subjects include property acquisition, park improvements, recreation programs, capital improvement planning, civil defense, education programs, department finances, security, training, cooperation with the public schools, personnel and payroll issues, community recreation needs, and youth groups and activities, among others. Also included is the department’s interaction with with or relation to the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, the City Planning Commission, Works Projects Administration, and Forward Thrust.

Of special interest is the Seattle Cemetery Removal and Reburial Register. This volume includes information regarding the exhumation of bodies from the cemetery land donated by the Denny Family to the City for its first park and the reburial of those bodies in other cemeteries. The volume lists the plot number, its owner, and names of those interred in the old cemetery, followed by the respective cemetery and plot where the bodies were reburied. Also included are the reports of the Commissioners who oversaw the process, a financial statement of costs, drawings showing the position of the new park in relation to the old cemetery, and a map of the cemetery.