Glen and Matt Grant

By Tim Black

There were many highlights of my and my daughter Briana's journey to Cholame this year. But just west of the intersection of 46 and 41 where the tragic accident happened, a symbol of redemption revealed itself at the "Tree of Heaven", surrounded by Seita Ohnisi's monument. It is a fitting tribute to James Dean's brilliance as an actor. Today, September 30, 2007, fifty-two years following the tragic auto accident 800 meters to the east that killed him, A display of articles and books, pictures and local publications by local authors were laid out among this memorial for all to admire and examine.

I met a father and son who really deserve some notice for their efforts in being the curators of this outdoor James Dean Museum. These items were rare offerings and I had no idea the "Death Drive" would end at this vibrant display of James Dean's legacy. I was moved by this display juxtaposed against the backdrop of two burly, brawney ranchers from the amber-colored hills above this tiny settlement that has remained virtually suspended in time since the accident.

The trip that brought us here followed a surreal odyessy through the same stretches of old Highway 99 James Dean drove that day, September 30, 1955. We would get off and back on the I-5 to get to them. The I-5 replaced old 99 over forty-years ago as traffic increased to and from Southern and Northern California, but the 99 is still open in certain hidden-away areas off the hustle and bustle of the 5.

About sixty miles up the I-5, north of the Hollywood starting point of 1219 North Vine, where James Dean set out from Competition Motors that sunny afternoon, we came upon the Templin Highway sign and exited. We made a left turn and within 100 yards we entered what seemed to be a very deserted area. We became time-travelers on a deserted old highway, U.S. 99.

 This became our "Ghost Highway". It had been James Dean's last drive into eternity fifty-two years ago. Ours was the only car on this strangely empty road. We came to a curve on a downslope and pulled to the side where I got out. I felt an urge to lay down flat on the old cracked and wavey surface.

Just then I imagined the "Little Bastard" winding out at 5200 rpms around that curve. I could see Dean's blond hair blowing and him smiling brightly. The sheer joy he was feeling driving his gleaming new race car through the pass was overwhelming him. Rolf, who had just warned him to slow down a half-hour earlier, was smiling too because speed is the racer's drug. His teeth glistened white and his darker hair  was also blown back by the force of the warm 1955 Southern California wind.

The events of that moment inhabited the rocks, the broken telephone poles, every grain of the soil under my feet.

Later that day, past Gorman and the Grapevine and the 166 turnoff where Dean finally received a speeding ticket, past Bakersfield and Blackwell's Corner, the road ended for us. It ended not where the Orthicon-image idol died, but 800 meters west at the Jack  Ranch Cafe where had gathered some of the locals who had come down from their ranches to greet strangers coming by to pay their respects.

I saw Warren there and noticed something come over me that had escaped me in my past trips here. It occurred to me that this was my opportunity to listen to what the locals had to say as this was really their day. This was their podium, their world and their story. I could not be the usual "bookworm" with a head full of Dean biographies and nothing else.

I decided to put away my books, road maps, diagrams, and just try and understanding what was here now.

Warren introduced me to an unassuming cattle rancher, Matt Grant, better known in our "James Dean in Death" Yahoo group" as "Bitterwater Cowboy". There is  a settlement near by called "Bitterwater".

Matt introduced me to his father Glen. They are members of a family that has lived in the hills of Cholame five generations. The ranch they live on was settled long ago by Grant's great-great grandfather John W. Grant and still stands just a few miles up the road from where Dean crashed.

Matt's grandmother Lily Grant had been the Postmistress there from 1977 until 1990.

She worked from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon. When the weather was bad she would even sleep there. She always kept two large scrap-books in which she taped the newspaper articles about the Dean monument, and also letters and photos and signatures from people who asked her questions. There was no one else around to answer them anymore.

Many old ranches have dotted these hills for generations. Before the settlers like the Grants moved in, the hills were inhabited by the Chumash, Indians who gave the settlement its name meaning "Beautiful".

The little area in unicorporated San Luis Obispo County sits at 1157 feet above sea level.

The sign says 65, but the town has increased to about 150 over the last few years, Matt tells me. 

Former site of the Cholame Garage. The wrecked autos were towed here on the night of September 30, 1955. To the far left center was the entrance door. The tow truck bay was to the extreme west side over near the propane tank and the ambulance bay was where the photographer is standing taking this shot. Dean's Porsche was dropped just this side of the tree to center right and the Ford direcly behind it. The Cholame garage was completely demolished in 1993.

Tim Black Collection

The last of the foundation at the location the 550 Spyder was stored.
 

Please contact Tim Black at blackcost@aol.com to find out how you can donate money or labor and materials to Cholame Ranchers Matt and Glen Grant to help them buiild a display tray for the James Dean Memorabilia they so selflessly share to any and all passersby each September 30th at the Seita Ohnishi Monument.

Each year at this Central California settlement, Matt and his father faithfully display their James Dean memorabillia under an old Ailanthus tree called the "Tree of Heaven" which is surrounded by the chrome-sculptured monument memorializing James Dean. The monument was erected in 1977 by Japanese businessman Seita Ohnishi at the cost of $15,000. Ohnishi's favorite James Dean film is "East of Eden".

It has become an altar for all those who come to pay tribute to their fallen hero, a hero that symbolizes a very basic American trait, a love of freedom. 

On sunny days it reflects the very intersection where the hero lost his life in a tragic auto crash.

Warren stood by a Porsche 550, a replica of Dean's, next to Rockabilly Bassist, Fabiola Gomez, also a James Dean fan. She handed me her digital camera and I snapped a picture of them. It was pure "Pop Art" in motion. I dubbed her "Dean Angel". I hope she doesn't mind (A photo of her sitting in the 550 can be viewed by clicking on "Death Drive 2007").

I was amazed by the Grant's collection.

Matt( seen above next to his father Glen), a modest rancher, offered his hand and I had met a friend.

I thought to myself, "these are the sort of people who were here that day and if Dean had any chance to live at all, they would have played a huge part in that survival". But it was not to be. Dean was so badly injured, no human being could have saved him.

The items are not for sale, no profit intended.

They are forever intended for the Grant family to share and care for the best they can.

Glen is a burly rancher, resembling the ultimate  "Marlboro Man". I could tell where Matt came from. He came from good family lines. Glen appeared in a feature filmed in Cholame called "Junkman". The movie was produced by a local rancher named H.B. Halicki.

Matt took me on a walking tour of the area. I would say it's a couple of acres. The old post office where his grandmother worked, was directly behind the "Tree of Heaven". It was scrapped in the early 1990s. In 1955, Paul Moreno owned the Jack Ranch Cafe building. It was a general store then that sold groceries and farm goods. He had a couple of gasoline pumps out in front of it and an auto repair shop a few feet to the West.

Now the post office is gone and so are the pumps and the Cholame garage.

Matt walked us over by the dirt lot where Moreno's "Cholame Garage" had stood.

He estimated where the ambulance bay would have been. It was the same 1953 Buick ambulance that collected Dean and Wuetherich and had got them to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital twenty-six miles away within twenty-minutes. We walked over a few feet to where the tow truck would have been. The tow truck was housed on the west end of the building to the front near the front door. The ambulance was against  the east wall closest to the Cafe. I could not resist the obvious. I asked Matt where Dean's Porsche had been parked in the garage. He knew the answer. We were standing on that spot. I got a chill. A chunk of white cement under my feet once held part of Dean's racer.

The Turnupseed Ford was dropped behind it and a little to the west. This would make sense. The Ford was the first to be hauled off the road as it was a hazard. It was blocking traffic. The Porsche was off to the side out off any traffic flow.

Plus, the Porsche needed more finessing to transport it. The Ford's rear wheels were still able to roll (judging from the Sanford Roth photos) so the front could have been lifted and the car towed in a normal front-to-back position just as it would normally head down the road.

 The Porsche had to literally have a sling wrapped around it and it was carried like a yoyo. The extra time needed to secure the Porsche would have made it the last car hauled to he shop.

Realizing I didn't even have a pencil to take down more of this priceless information, I eventually promised to call Matt in a couple of days to ask more about the tragic day fifty-two years ago.

On Tuesday, I kept my promise and telephoned Matt.

He answered on the first ring and I was elated. I hadn't spent any time preparing any notes because I know my best interviews are always spontaneous. But if I do not reach a person after a few tries, my confidence lessens and then even notes do not help.

I introduced myself and Matt easily remembered me from our meeting in Cholame Sunday. 

After brief small talk, very brief as I am not good at it, we jumped right into the day James Dean came through their town.

Matt stopped to verify my September 30, 1955 questions with his dad without putting his hand on the mouthpiece of his telephone, so I could pick up what Glen was saying. This was our interview and very informal so we didn't have any set-in-stone method to it.

Glen said he was getting ready to harvest grain that next morning. His radio was tuned to KPRL, a local Paso Robles radio station. This was October 1st. The crash had happened just down the road from his ranch.

I asked Matt if the ranch he lived in that day was the same as the one I had called and he said it was.

Glen did not know who James Dean was, Dean's only released film, East of Eden, had yet to make its way up to the area.

Glen said he drove by the crash site about a week later and saw a little road debris from the cars and some skid marks, but that was about it.

I needed to know if Matt knew the fate of any of the vehicles involved in the incident at 41 and 466. 

 I started on a life-long search for James Dean's only car that survived that day, his 1955 Ford Country Squire station wagon, being driven behind him with a race trailer in tow by his friends Bill Hickman and photographer Sanford Roth.

I did not specifically care to ask about the Porsche because so much ground has already been covered there. I was more interested in the black and white, customized, Turnupseed 1950 Ford Tudor coupe.

Matt told me of the day he heard from his Dad that Donald Turnupseed came by the Cholame garage one day a few days after the wreck happened.

Donald came by one day," Matt began. "He took some photos and then just walked off without saying much and never came back." "Then his insurance company eventually wrote the car off", Matt said 

According to Matt, a salvage operator either in Fresno or Bakersfield bought the Ford and towed it away. 

It is my opinon, the Ford was never seen again by Turnupseed or anyone else and it met the crusher. It was nothing but a wrecked, five-year-old car worth nothing to anyone. Turnupseed was said to have asked Paul Moreno to sell it for what it was worth and give him half. The car was probably worth about twenty-five 1955 dollars in my estimation.

Matt continued answering my car questions the best he could. "Some garage owner over in Shandon named John Cockrun sold a tow truck he claimed had belonged to Paul Moreno and that it was the one that hauled the cars off the road that night", he said. "But they found out it wasn't the right truck". I knew he was referring to the tow truck sold to monument builder Seita Ohnishi who paid to have it restored to original condition, but not before Paul Moreno's son saw it and said it was not the truck.

"Yeah, I heard that," Matt continued. "It was an honest mistake on Cockrun's part".

Perhaps it was.

I appreciate the hotrods and the Dean impersonators that show up from out of town every year, but once you meet the real deal, you will want to help them in their effort to honestly preserve the legacy of a person tragically killed in their home town over fifty-two years ago.

Please join me in donating whatever you can to Matt and Glen to keep their selfless effort alive each year. 

Tim Black