The Elisha Palmer papers largely consists of legal documents (deeds, mortgages, a land patent signed by President Woodrow Wilson, lease agreements and tax records), correspondence (oil and land related). It also contains a great deal of his records regarding his citrus crops going back to the mid-1920s (harvest receipts and growers association bulletins), his oil interests maps and revenues from his property dating back to the late teens), and a few notable advertising pamphlets and blurbs from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s, as well as documents written (mostly) during World War II on the Japanese in California.

Ms. Clara Engle's research notes from her Master’s thesis on the Orange County Citrus Strike of 1936. It is very probable that she was instrumental in getting Betty Palmer to donate the Palmer family’s papers to the university. The collection, as a whole reveals some more detail on the citrus and oil industries as well as daily life on an orange ranch in Orange County during the first half of the 20th Century.