Founding Father?

John G. Capron, c. 1870. When he died in 1914 at age 86, Capron’s obituaries credited him as “the last of the four men who had most to do with building the San Diego area to what it was at the time,” according to a 1973 Union article. (The three other men were Alonzo Horton and Frank and Warren Kimball — the latter two founded National City.)

In 1885, Capron asked the City “to give perpetual protection to the Torrey pines.” So it was that Torrey Pines State Reserve came to be.