Oscar A. Trippet

Oscar A. Trippet (March 6, 1856 – July 15, 1923) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The Trippet Ranch gate of Topanga State Park is named for him, as his family owned the land through the first half of the 20th century. Education and career Trippet attended local public schools, Indiana State Normal School, and the University of Virginia School of Law. Early in life he worked as a schoolteacher, farmer and high school principal. He entered private practice with his brother in Princeton from 1879 to 1887. He was a member of the Indiana Senate in 1886, elected on the Prohibition Party ticket and the youngest man elected to the state legislature to that time. He moved to California in 1887 where he ran a private practice in San Diego, California from 1887 to 1901, and in Los Angeles, California from 1901 to 1915. His Los Angeles practice was Trippet, Chapman and Biby, in partnership with Ward Chapman, M. L. Chapman and J. E.  Biby. The firm represented corporations including National Bank of California, California Vegetable Union, and the Economic Gas Company. One of his clients was Abbot Kinney, the storied founder of Venice of California. He was also chief counsel for the Home Telephone Company. He was president of the Los Angeles Bar Association 1911–12. Trippet was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson on March 2, 1915, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of California vacated by Judge Olin Wellborn. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 3, 1915, and received his commission the same day. In 1916, Ambrose Collier was seated to a jury in Trippet's courtroom; Collier was "the first colored man to qualify in the history of the United States district court here for jury duty."