El Pueblo de Los Angeles museums

Los Pobladores, the Founders of El Pueblo de Los Angeles

There are 5 great museums in EL PUEBLO DE LOS ANGELES.

Beautiful bougainvilla glistening in the sun on Olvera Street

Kiosko in the center of La Plaza, site of many festive celebrations

MUSEUMS

There are five wonderful museums located within El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument.
All are open to the public, usually during the hours of 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays.

The five museums are as follows:

1. The Firehouse

2. Sepulveda House

3. Water Exhibit/Christine Sterling Exhibit

4. Ávila Adobe

5. Chinese American Museum

	PLAZA FIREHOUSE (1884) was the first fire house built in Los Angeles to store fire-fighting equipment and to house personnel. It was called Engine Company No. 1 and was the home for the first volunteer firefighters of Los Angeles. For 2 years it housed volunteers, a horse cart and 3 horses. The Firehouse moved out in 1892 due to a legal dispute and was used as a saloon, boarding house, drugstore and vegetable market over the years. In 1953 it became part of El Pueblo and it was restored and opened as a museum in 1960, containing fire fighting equipment, photographs and maps from the 19th and 20th centuries.
	SEPULVEDA HOUSE was built in 1887 by Señora Eloisa Martinez de Sepúlveda in the Eastlake Victorian style at a cost of $8,000. It contained 22 rooms, 2 commercial businesses and 3 residences. The building has been restored and now contains the Visitors' Center, a museum and an 18-minute film on the history of El Pueblo de Los Angeles.
	The HISTORY OF WATER IN LOS ANGELES exhibit opened in 1984 and chronicles the bringing of water to Los Angeles from the days of Zanja Madre through the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct developed by William Mulholland in the early 1900s.
	The TRIBUTE TO CHRISTINE STERLING exhibit focuses on Mrs. Sterling's successful efforts to save the Ávila Adobe from demolition in 1926 and to revitalize Olvera Street as a "Mexican Marketplace" in 1930.
	ÁVILA ADOBE is the oldest building in Los Angeles, having been built by Don Francisco Ávila, a wealthy ranchero, in 1818. It became Commodore Robert Stockton's military headquarters during the Mexican-American War in 1847. It was saved from demolition in 1926 by Christine Sterling and houses an excellent museum today depicting what it would have looked like in the 1840s.
	The CHINESE AMERICAN MUSEUM is the newest museum in El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. It opened in December, 2003 and is the first and only museum dedicated to telling the history and stories of the Chinese American experience here in Los Angeles.

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