What is the oldest tree in Lebec?
The oldest tree in Lebec is the Peter Lebeck Oak, a valley oak at Fort Tejon State Historic Park on Fort Tejon Road, beside I-5 in Grapevine Canyon. Nobody has dated it properly; a 2016 account describes the fort's valley oaks as around four hundred years old, and no ring count or girth measurement has been published for this one. It is known for the grave beneath it. Peter Lebeck, probably a Frenchman, was killed by a grizzly bear on 17 October 1837, and whoever buried him cut the notice into the bark: Peter le Beck, killed by a bear, Octr 17, 1837. The tree healed over the carving and it was recovered decades later. The park is open daily from 9 to 4 with a day use vehicle fee, and the grave is part of an ordinary visit.
Fort Tejon State Historic Park is on the west side of I-5 in Grapevine Canyon at Lebec, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles and roughly an hour and a half by car. There is no public transport, so this is a driving stop, and it is a natural one on the way over the Grapevine. The park opens daily from 9 to 4 and charges a day use vehicle fee; the grave under the oak is part of a normal visit rather than a separate ticket, and the restored 1854 fort buildings are the rest of the site. The tree's story is older than the fort by seventeen years. Peter Lebeck was killed by a grizzly on 17 October 1837 and buried here, his epitaph cut into the bark. By 1857 the tree had grown over it. In the 1880s or 1890s the Foxtail Rangers, a group out of Bakersfield, cut that bark away and found the words mirrored on the inner face. Where that piece of bark now sits is disputed between the fort and the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield. The pin marks the park entrance rather than the tree.
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