Fort Tejon State Historic Park

Fort Tejon is located in the Grapevine Canyon, the main route between California's great central valley and Southern California.

Of course that history, beginning with the ranch's formation under a Mexican Land Grant in 1843, two decades before the Civil War, marked the beginning of the displacement of several Native American tribes — including the Kitanemuk, Yokuts, Chumash, Tataviam, and Kawaiisu.

It was often an ugly chapter in the history of Kern County and California, and cannot be ignored as the chronicles of local development and settlement in the West are celebrated and shared.

Fort Tejon was first garrisoned by the United States Army on August 10, 1854 and was abandoned ten years later on September 11, 1864.

A now-infamously failed experiment of the Army in the mid-1800s, the idea was that camels andwould already be acclimated to dry, hot conditions and could be useful as military beasts of burden in situations that would be too trying for other saddle animals, like horses or mules. Although they could maintain a decent speed while carrying a lot of weight, and they were good at finding watering holes, Congress refused to further fund the project in the advent of the Civil War. And though the camels actually made the 1200-mile trek from Texas to California on foot in the now notorious "Camel Brigade," their military service ended in 1864, shortly after arriving to Fort Tejon, its western terminus.

The fort was established to protect and control the Indians who were living on the Sebastian Indian Reservation, and to protect both the Indians and white settlers from raids by the Paiutes, Chemeheui, Mojave, and other Indian groups of the desert regions to the south east.

There are restored adobes from the original fort and the park’s museum features exhibits on army life and local history. The park also has a number of beautiful 400 year-old valley oak trees.

The ranch got its name from Lt. Francisco Ruiz who called the region El Tejon, meaning badger, after his soldiers, sometime around 1806, found a dead badger at the mouth of the canyon. Ruiz also named Canada de las Uvas (Grapevine Canyon), because of the abundance of grapevines found there.

To this day, motorists call that steep grade on Interstate 5 "the Grapevine."

A story in The Californian published July 16, 1928 relates a tale of how Edward Beale bought the Tejon Ranch land from Mexico.

According to the story related by Tulare resident F.F. Latta, Judge T.A. Baker, the son of Bakersfield founder Col. Thomas Baker, told the tale of Alexis Godey, "companion of Kit Carson" and a guide to explorer John Fremont.

"At the end of the Mexican War and on the eve of California becoming a possession of the United States, a plan was laid by these men to obtain title to two ranches south of Bakersfield while the country was yet in the hands of Mexico."

According to the story, Godey was furnished with $3,000 and riding and exhausting multiple horses, rode from Fort Tejon to Mexico City, where he was able to purchase Tejon Ranch from Mexico.

"With the present-day methods of travel, it is almost impossible to realize the immensity of such an undertaking," the story concludes in undisguised admiration.

Of course, the accuracy of the account may be impossible to verify — in fact it seems far-fetched — but the sense of the indomitable spirit of those early settlers who helped form Tejon Ranch shines through and seems to be inseparable from the 175-year history of the ranch.

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For years people have been trying to piece together the story of Peter Lebeck, but what people in Kern County also don’t know is that they are driving right by him when they drive on interstate five and pass Fort Tejon Historical Park.

Based off the circumstances surrounding Lebeck’s burial site it also showed more about why he was roaming around in the forest in the first place.

“Whoever buried him there carved into the tree his grave marker and the grave marker says Peter Lebeck killed by an x bear October 17 1837,” Deagan said.

According to State Park Interpreter at Fort Tejon Historical Park, Michael Deagon, there were many fur trappers in this area in the 1830’s who hunted for animals to sell their fur on the market, “The story seems to point that he was probably a French fur trapper. They found him about four feet down and they said that he was about six feet tall, he had broad proportions, he was missing his right forearm, both of his feet and his left hand and they said there were broken ribs on the left side and other bones were badly mauled. Which seemed to be consistent with what his grave marker says you know killed by an x bear.”

Either way, after he was buried his legacy lived on in Kern County, “He’s the guy the town of Lebec all through here, through the grapevine pass is now named for,” Deagan said.

The Fort Tejon Historical Park also hosts a Peter Labeck ghost night every October 17 for people to learn more about his story. menos ↑