Cholame (;

Salinan The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition f ...

: ''Tco'alam'') is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

San Luis Obispo County, California San Luis Obispo County (), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a County (United States), county on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 282, ...

, United States. It sits within a mile of the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is Fault (geology)#Strike-slip fau ...

at an elevation of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

and is located at . Cholame is reached via

State Route 41 The following highways are numbered 41: International * AH41, Asian Highway 41 * European route E41 Australia * Olympic Highway * Mid-Western Highway Canada * Alberta Highway 41 * British Columbia Highway 41 * Manitoba Highway 41 * Newfoundlan ...

, just southwest of the junction of Route 46. Rainfall data from a nearby ranch shows that the area around Cholame only receives about eight to nine inches (200–230 mm) of rain in a normal year.

History

Cholame was originally a rancheria of the Salinian Indians, Rancho Cholame was an 1844 Mexican land grant. In 1867

William Welles Hollister William Welles Hollister (1818–1886) was a native of Ohio who came west in the 1850s and became a wealthy rancher and entrepreneur in California. Biography Ancestors and early life William Welles Hollister, was born on Jan. 12, 1818 near Ha ...

(1818–1886) purchased Rancho Cholame. Hollister sold a half interest in the rancho to Robert Edgar Jack in 1869.Dan Krieger, "Ranch Near Where James Dean Died in Crash Has a Long History," ''San Luis Obispo Tribune,'' May 17, 2015, page B3] Jack studied at Maine Wesleyan Seminary, and he later was an accountant at a shipping house in New York City. In the Civil War he enlisted in the 56th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and he served in

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pe ...

, during the

Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Po ...

and then in New York to quell "anti-Negro riots" there. Near the end of the war, he moved to California and became Hollister's accountant and secretary on the latter's San Justo Ranch surrounding the present city of Hollister. When that property was subdivided, the two bought the Cholame land. Jack married Hollister's daughter, Lucy Ellen (Nellie) in 1870 and became the largest wool grower in

Central California Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the state, north of Southern California, which includes Los Angeles, and south of Northern California, which includes San Francisco. It includes the northern portion of the San J ...

, later switching to cattle and agriculture. Jack organized the County Bank of San Luis Obispo. The land was sold to the Hearst Corporation in 1966 and is still a working cattle ranch.David W. Kean, 1993, ''Wide Places in the California Roads: The encyclopedia of California's small towns and the roads that lead to them'' (Volume 1 of 4: Southern California Counties), pp. 44–45.

James Dean

On September 30, 1955, actor

James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, ''Rebel Without a Cause' ...

was killed in a traffic collision when college student Donald Turnupseed made a left turn without seeing Dean's

Porsche 550 The Porsche 550 is a racing sports car produced by Porsche from 1953 until 1956. In that time only 90 Porsche 550s were produced, and they quickly established dominance in the 1.1- and 1.5- liter classes. The Porsche 550 is a mid-engine car with ...

Spyder approaching at the junction of State Highways 41 and 46. On the same date in 2005, the State of California observed the 50th anniversary of Dean's death by naming the intersection as the

James Dean Memorial Junction State Route 46 (SR 46) is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California. It is a major crossing of the Pacific Coast Ranges, Coast Ranges and it is the southernmost crossing of the Diablo Range, connecting California State Ro ...

. A few hundred people, including state officials, a Dean family member, several Dean archivists and fans gathered at the junction and in Cholame to pay tribute to the actor. A memorial to Dean was erected in 1977 near a local restaurant by a retired Japanese businessman from

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

, Seita Ohnishi. The monument is made of stainless steel and surrounds a

tree of heaven ''Ailanthus altissima'' , commonly known as tree of heaven, ailanthus, varnish tree, or in Chinese as ''chouchun'' (), is a deciduous tree in the family Simaroubaceae. It is native to northeast and central China, and Taiwan. Unlike other membe ...

Jack Ranch Cafe

200px, Jack Ranch Cafe Jack Ranch Cafe () is a cafe and restaurant in Cholame on Highway 46 close to highways 41 and 46 junction. It is opposite the James Dean memorial.

References

{{authority control James Dean Unincorporated communities in San Luis Obispo County, California Unincorporated communities in California