 Lebec is named in honor of Peter Lebeck or Lebecque, a French trapper killed by a grizzly bear in 1837 in the area that later became Fort Tejon.He was memorialized in an epitaph at the site, found carved in a bare spot on an old oak tree.The epitaph read "PETER LEBECK / KILLED BY A X BEAR / OCTR 17 / 1837."