<P> One popular, though false account is that Horace Greeley, after seeing such a fight, gave the modern stock market its "bear" and "bull" nicknames--based on the fighting styles of the two animals: the bear swipes downward while the bull hooks upward . </P> <P> In 1866, a grizzly described as weighing as much as 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) was killed in Valley Center, California, the biggest bear ever found in California, as recalled in 1932 by Catherine E. Lovett Smith, who had been six years old at the time and on whose family's ranch the bear had been found; Lovett Smith stated that this was where Valley Center got its original name of "Bear Valley" (other sources concurred as to the story of the bear, but differed on its size). </P> <P> Less than 75 years after the discovery of gold in 1848, almost every grizzly bear in California had been tracked down and killed . One prospector in Southern California, William F. Holcomb (nicknamed "Grizzly Bill" Holcomb), was particularly well known for hunting grizzly bears in what is now San Bernardino County . The last hunted California grizzly was shot in Tulare County, California, in August 1922, although no body, skeleton or pelt was ever produced . Two years later in 1924, what was thought to be a grizzly was spotted in Sequoia National Park for the last time, and thereafter, grizzlies were never seen again in California . </P> <P> Californian grizzlies had been pitted against other animals, such as bulls . </P>

When was the last grizzly bear killed in california