The Peter Lebeck Oak

In October 1837 a trapper called Peter Lebeck was killed by a grizzly bear here, and whoever buried him cut the notice into the bark of a valley oak: Peter le Beck, killed by a bear, Octr 17, 1837. By 1857 the tree had grown over the lettering and sealed it in. In the 1880s or 1890s the Foxtail Rangers, a group out of Bakersfield, cut that bark away and found the inscription mirrored on its underside, the tree having taken an impression of the words while healing over them. They re-marked the grave, and a headstone copying the wording went in during 1938. The recovered bark is on display, though sources disagree on whether at Fort Tejon itself or at the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield, so ask at the desk. The fort came seventeen years after the burial, in 1854, which makes the oak the older resident by some margin. Nobody has dated it properly. The most recent account we can point to is a 2016 visit describing the fort's valley oaks as around four hundred years old, so if you know better, or find this one changed, tell us. Fort Tejon State Historic Park sits beside I-5 in Grapevine Canyon, open daily from 9 to 4 with a day use vehicle fee, and the grave is part of an ordinary visit. The pin marks the park entrance rather than the tree.