Frank Quan, the last of the China Camp shrimpers and the only remaining resident of a historic fishing community established by Chinese immigrants on the Marin County shore of San Pablo Bay in the mid-1800s, died of natural causes this week in the village where he was born and lived most of his life. He would have been 91 next week.

“He was the personification of China Camp Village,” said Martin Lowenstein, executive director of Friends of China Camp. “Many equated him and the village as one in the same.”

Friends of China Camp board member John Muir called Mr. Quan “a rare character, really the true living history of China Camp.”

“When you visit the village,” he said in a released statement, “it feels like you’ve stepped back in time, and a lot of that feeling is there thanks to Frank.”

Mr. Quan died Monday in a brown wooden house with a multimillion-dollar bay view near the wharf where he docked his fishing boat and the cafe where he often held court.

“To his dying day, he fished in the waters there, maintained historic buildings and machinery and restored boats,” Lowenstein said. “He was a fully active member of the community, working to keep the village alive and functioning.”

Most of Mr. Quan’s catch was sold as bait. But on weekends he would cook and serve clam chowder to China Camp State Park visitors.

In the 1880s, China Camp Village, at the tip of Point San Pedro near San Rafael, was home to 500 Chinese who made their living netting grass shrimp that were dried on the hillsides behind their homes. The China Camp fishing fleet suffered a crippling blow in 1911 when a law was passed outlawing Chinese bag nets, then the most efficient way of catching shrimp.

A few shrimpers adapted and remained. But, in a 1990 Independent Journal interview, Mr. Quan said the death knell was sounded for shrimp fishing in the 1960s, when river water that normally would have poured into the bay was diverted to thirsty Southern California, making the bay too salty for shrimp to thrive.

“Look out there,” he said, gazing out at the bay. “There’s not even one guy fishing. It’s a shame. In another generation it’ll be over.”

During World War II, Mr. Quan served in the Navy as a signalman.

In 1977, Mr. Quan was instrumental in transforming China Camp into a state park after developer Chinn Ho donated the 36-acre village to be preserved as a living memorial to the Bay Area’s Chinese-American history.

Mr. Quan’s family was a prominent part of that history. At the turn of the century his grandfather, Quan Hock Quock, was a storekeeper in the village. Because Caucasian women were forbidden from marrying Chinese men under discriminatory laws in effect in California in 1924, Mr. Quan’s father, Henry, who ran a China Camp shrimp company with his brother, George, had to travel to Reno to marry his wife, Grace.

In 2003, a replica of a Chinese junk was built and named the Grace Quan after Mr. Quan’s mother. It’s berthed at China Camp during the summer and in the winter at San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.

For decades Mr. Quan was a member of the board of Friends of China Camp. John Muir, his fellow board member, credited Mr. Quan with helping unite the efforts of the state park staff, volunteers and the village community.

He said of Mr. Quan, “The way he welcomed friends and park visitors and engaged with people of all ages, and his constant devotion to the care and life of the village was a gift that will resonate here for a long, long time,”

A public memorial and celebration of Mr. Quan’s life is being planned. Details will be posted at friendsofchinacamp.org.