In 1866, a grizzly bear described as weighing as much as was killed in what is present-day Valley Center, California. The incident was recalled in 1932 by Catherine E. Lovett Smith, and it was the biggest bear ever found in California; if its measurements are accurate, this particular bear was one of the largest specimens of any bear species ever recorded. Lovett Smith witnessed the bear’s killing on her family's ranch when she was six years old. (Other sources confirm her account of the bear, but differ as to its exact size.) Her telling of that bear is part of the oral history of “Bear Valley,” the original name for Valley Center.