Agustin Olvera

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Agustin Olvera (d. 1876) was a pioneer of Los Angeles, California. He arrived from Mexico in 1834 where he had been a Juez de Paz (Justice of the Peace). Olvera held various offices in the Mexican administration. He helped to bridge the gap between the governance of California by Mexico and the United States. As a commissioner he signed the Treaty of Cahuenga ending the war in California. U.S. Military Governor Bennet Riley appointed Olvera to be Judge of the First Instance in 1849. Augustin Olvera was subsequently elected the first county judge of the newly formed County of Los Angeles in 1850. He relied upon a bilingual Sheriff to translate the proceedings from Spanish because he did not speak English when he first took the bench. Along with his legal duties, Olvera was responsible, with his two associate justices, for administering county business until the establishment of the Board of Supervisors two years later. When his term expired in 1853, he entered the private practice of law. In 1877, the Los Angeles City Council changed the name of Wine Street to Olvera Street in his honor. He held the first county trials in his home near the historic Olvera Street marketplace and plaza.^[1]