California will now designate part of Highway 46 in San Luis Obispo County as James Dean Memorial Highway. The late actor and Hollywood icon died in an accident there 71 years ago.
In 1955, Dean ran his Porsche Spyder into the car of a Cal Poly student, who was making a left-turn. The student was uninjured, but Dean died from the crash at the age of 24.
Assembly Member Dawn Addis, whose district includes Monterey and San Luis Obispo, introduced the resolution to name a stretch of the road after the actor last year.
“He was on a journey that was very typical when he tragically died,” Addis said. “So getting to rename this highway is just a huge honor and very special.”
Dean was driving from Los Angeles to Salinas when he crashed near Cholame, at the intersection of Highway 46 and Highway 41.
Sometimes called “Blood Alley,” a project to improve the interchange’s safety was completed last year.
A press release from Caltrans says the memorial “serves not only as a tribute, but also as a reminder of the ongoing need for vigilance, continued safety improvements, and community awareness to help prevent future tragedies.”
The agency held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new memorial highway on Wednesday.
Dean’s film East of Eden, released the year that he died, is set in Monterey and Salinas.
“When I was doing research, I went back and watched East of Eden,” Addis told KCBX.
She says it was a “poignant reminder” of how he represented the Central Coast “through his art and through film, and through his portrayal of a young man's struggles to make his own way in the world.”
