California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


NICHOLAS OLIVAS represents one of the old Spanish families that have been identified with this 
section of California since pioneer times. He is a very successful rancher and horticulturist in 
Ventura County, and is one of the men who has done much to develop this county as a center of 
production for some of the California crops most in demand by the world.
He is a son of Nicholas and Joesefa (Figueroa) Olivas. Nicholas Olivas, Sr., was born in Los 
Angeles February 18, 1822. In 1832 his parents removed to Santa Barbara. There his father had 
charge of the Mission Indians for a time. In 1833 he came to what is now Ventura County, 
where the grandfather was given a grant of 2,000 acres, now known as the San Miguel Grant. 
He used this land for grazing large herds of stock, and followed the pastoral pursuits which 
largely prevailed in this section of California until comparatively recent years.
On that ranch Nicholas Olivas. Sr., worked with his father up to the age of twenty-five. He was 
then given sixty-two acres by his father from the grant, and was successfully identified with its 
management as a farm and ranch until his death on December 31, 1915. In Ventura County 
Nicholas, Sr., married in 1845 Joesefa Figueroa. They became the parents of fourteen children.
One of these children, Nicholas Olivas, Jr., was born in Ventura July 18, 1880. Up to the age of 
eighteen he attended the public schools and his early experiences having acquainted him with 
the management of a farm, he took most of the responsibilities connected with his father's 
ranch and carried them until the death of the senior Nicholas Olivas. On the division of the 
estate he inherited his share of the sixty-two acres, and since then has bought the interests of 
the other heirs with the exception of those of his mother who still owns twenty acres. However, 
Mr. Olivas farms the entire place of sixty-two acres, and his main crop is beans.
He is a republican and a Catholic. May 18, 1914, he married at Santa Barbara Miss Minnie 
Smith. They have one child, Nicholas Charles.