SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nearly seven decades ago, actor James Dean died in a fateful crash in a quiet part of San Luis Obispo County where Highways 41 and 46 meet.

The short-lived movie star’s legacy on and off the silver screen has endured since the Sept. 30, 1955, crash, forever enshrined in San Luis Obispo County at the Cholame “Y.”

Dean’s life and death on the highway have been memorialized at the “Y” since 1977, when Japanese businessman and James Dean fan Seita Ohnishi spent $15,000 to erect a memorial marker near the site of the crash.

Now, as Dean fades into the memory of American popular culture, an effort to upgrade and update the 1977 memorial is getting underway.

Neil Sheehan, a James Dean memorabilia collector, is spearheading the restoration effort. Bearing a tattoo of Dean’s likeness on one arm and depictions of the California Highway markers for Highways 41 and 46 — formerly Highway 466 — on the other, Sheehan is no stranger to studying and preserving Dean’s legacy.

Sheehan has collected James Dean memorabilia since college and recently loaned his extensive collection to the James Dean Museum in Fairmont, Indiana. He said it’s important to uphold the legacy of one of the most influential actors of the 1950s.

“People ask that question all the time — ‘Why are you a Dean fan?’ and ‘Why would this be important?’ — and I think it means different things to different people,” Sheehan said. “I don’t know if it’s important to memorialize James Dean as the person, because I don’t think people knew who he was, but I think the characters that he played are impactful.”

Memorial has seen wear and tear over four decades

Ben Higgins, director of agricultural operations at Hearst Corp., has worked with Sheehan over the course of the past year to get the memorial updated.

Hearst owns the Jack Ranch property around Cholame, including the land on which the memorial sits, and has served as the memorial’s de facto steward since its installation, Higgins said.

Since 1977, Hearst has completed minor upkeep, including maintaining the land, picking up trash and cleaning up the occasional bit of vandalism, Higgins said.

Still, over its 47-year history, the memorial has simply worn down, with letters going missing from the sign and the materials wearing down from being touched and observed by hundreds of thousands of visitors, he said.

“Given that volunteer interest in maintaining the memorial has faded over the years, we are very grateful to Mr. Sheehan for his interest in maintaining and repairing the memorial,” Higgins said.

Higgins said that as Caltrans continues construction of the long-awaited flyover interchange project at the site of the “Y” — which will allow northbound traffic to pass over Highway 46 onto Highway 41 — the memorial will be less visible and accessible from the highway.

As construction has ramped up in recent months, the Jack Ranch Cafe — another Hearst Corp. property that shares a border with the memorial sign — has closed completely, Higgins said.

Once construction has finished, the cafe and memorial will be accessible by a driveway connecting the newly aligned highway to the site, he said.

Repairs could enhance memorial

Sheehan said he’s visited the memorial site around half a dozen times by now and noticed the signage’s deterioration in recent years.

While he didn’t know exactly how much it would cost, Sheehan said he plans to pay for all repairs out of his own pocket.

There will be some minor additions to the memorial, but Sheehan said he intends to keep the site essentially as is, maintaining Ohnishi’s monument in its original form.

“We’re probably going to put up a new plaque, with some help from Marcus Winslow, Dean’s cousin, and some people from the James Dean Museum, just to update people since it’s been there for 50 years, on new things about Dean,” Sheehan said. “We’ll put a new plaque up there, a new lighting security system, redo some landscaping, and it’ll just be an ongoing maintenance project that I’ll be in charge of to make sure that it doesn’t fall back into disrepair.”

Sheehan said repairs will likely be complete by this time next year in time for the 70th anniversary of Dean’s death.

“I would hope by this time next year that everything’s completely done, and new fans that come for the actual 70th anniversary of his death will see a brand new, completely redone or refurbished site that looks like the original from 1977, with just an extra plaque there,” Sheehan said.

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