James Dean precise crash location from Google Earth

today I'm going to another place in Southern California and I put some markers in to make it more efficient and easier to follow but the first place I'm going to is a home in Sherman Oaks address is 1 4 6 1 1 Sutton Street and that would be this home right here this is the home that James Dean lived in the day while he was living in this house today he died now the date was September 30th 1955 when James Dean left his home and he went to a place called The Hollywood Ranch Market which in perspective to his home is over in this direction right here and it's on the corner of Vine Street and fountain Avenue in Hollywood Hollywood Ranch Market used to be in this location here it's no longer there if you go down the street view you can see that what is there now is in El Pollo Loco an office depot and some other private businesses back here but at the time on the date of September 30 of 1955 when James Dean was there it was called The Hollywood Ranch Market and what I'm gonna do is show you a photo here's James Dean in the car he was killed in this is just a few hours before he died that's him here at the driver's seat this is his Porsche mechanic that he took with him and off behind him you can see a ranch market right here and there's a truck coming out of this intersection and just behind him you see another road right here and if you go back to Google Earth and back up a little here would be the end of the ranch Marv Hollywood Ranch Market right here and that little other road would have been alright hitters so that picture of James Dean one of his last he was roughly in this position right here with his white cars when they took that picture of him now if you look behind him there's a station wagon and this is a station wagon that's pulling the trailer that originally they were gonna tow this Porsche on and take it to the races but the Porsche is in didn't have a lot of miles or hours on it so they had to break it in and they decided to drive it up to Salinas instead of to--it now once he left the ranch market they were all there he was there with his friends they were getting coffee or whatever else they were getting he left the ranch market at about 1:15 p.m. with his mechanic in his Porsche with him and from there they went to a gas station that was pretty close to his home which is over here was a mobile station right here on this corner of Beverly Glen and Ventura Boulevard and it was right here where this empty lot is there actually was a gas station here back then and I'm gonna go to some photos here and you can see here he is and I believe this was the last photo taken of him before he was killed but here he is at that gas station a little sports car the Porsche and behind him is the station wagon that's pulling the trailer that originally was going to tow the Porsche up there but they decided to drive it to break the engine and this is what it looked like the day he was killed and here's a more recent picture of it before it was torn down that you can see it here and that last photo of James Dean his Porsche would have been parked roughly right in here and there's the pole and he would have been standing right there back in here is where the station wagon pulled on the trailer was now if we go back to Google Earth I'm gonna go down to Street View here and you can see here this is where the gas station was and the picture of James Dean he would have been standing roughly right about in here with his dirt mound as of the last picture taken of him before he was killed roughly in here now I want you to see something I want you to notice this fire hydrant right here and this palm tree and also the driveway that used to go into the gas station and the alignment with this palm tree to the location here we go back to this photo you can see here's the palm tree here's the driveway into the gas station and there's the fire hydrant but this mom tree kind of just a little bit a little beyond this bomb for you could see that would have been about the general area or James Dean was when they took that last photo of him so this palm tree kind of lines up with where he was and in here on here in Google Earth you can see just a little bit past it straight back so that would have put it roughly right in here is where he was standing but that's what it looks like now they're supposed to build a store or a supermarket on there at the time that Google Earth took these pictures obviously they haven't and at the time Google Earth took the pictures from the satellites you could see that it's still mostly an empty lot with a with a building going in back here so this was the location where he stopped the gas up and he left this area right around two o'clock it was roughly two o'clock you're left it her showed up now a friend of his named Bill Hickman was driving the station wagon that was pulling the trailer it was a stunt driver friend is so they all headed north I'm not sure which way they went I know they didn't take the 405 because it did not exist at that time so they ended up going up through the grapevine right through here heading north towards Bakersfield and just before Bakersfield I put another marker in just a little bit south of a place called Mettler at 3:30 p.m. James Dean was pulled over by the Highway Patrol and he was given a ticket for speeding doing 65 and a 55 now I don't know the exact location by Mettler but I do know it had to be South America cuz after he got his ticket somewhere along this stretch of the 99 right here and it was the 99 that ticket actually says the 99 after he got his ticket they got back on and they made a left on route 166 here at Mettler and they headed down 166 to Maricopa they made a right turn at Maricopa took 233 a long way braking in the engine and they took it to a place called Blackwell's corner now here at Blackwell's corner James Dean had some reefer and he met up with a couple of his fellow racers friends of his a guy named Lance I think it's pronounced revin Lowe or prevent Lowe and a guy named Bruce Kessler their plans that they made here at the time was that they were gonna drive all the way from here Blackwell's corner to Paso Robles right over here and they were gonna have dinner but we know that James Dean never made it so they met here at Blackwell's corner about 5:15 p.m. and they departed they said that James Dean took off immediately going at a high rate of speed pulled away from the station wagon and continued on down this route and it was right here at this intersection or the accident occurred this is where James Dean was killed right here at this intersection he was heading from the east to the west and there was a car coming up from the west to the east that made it went to make a left turn onto the 41 didn't see him hit him he was hit by a guy named donald turnupseed who was a 23 year old Cal Poly student if you get down closer you can actually look and you can kind of see over here on this fence there's a little bit of a memorial here and a lot of people think that I think they put the memorial there because they think his car may have come to a stop right here as a result of the accident but that wouldn't be true so if we go down the street view I'll put it down right here you can kind of see the little memorial that has been put up for him along this fence right here now back in 1955 this intersection was very different than it is today let me exit street view and explain it now I'm going to show you some pictures here's a picture here you can kind of see the intersection if you're going toward the picture that's the direction donald turnupseed was going and he tried to make a left turn here James Dean was coming toward us on the picture and he got hit the car ended up flying over in this direction right over here now if you look real careful you could see that it's two lanes that the road is much more arrow here the only thing that is consistent still is the center of the road center of the road hasn't moved it's still there but the road has been made wider today than it is here and this turn right up through here has a slight angle to it right here now I'm gonna go back here now if you look here you don't see any of that this transitionally in this westbound transition lane did not exist at the time this turn lane over here did not exist at the time just kind of had a dirt section and a hard right you make and this turn lane right here did not meet the 46 at a 90-degree angle and I'll show you from this angle right here you can kind of see now we're going the other way we're going the direction that James Dean was going and he was struck roughly right in here and tossed over into here but you can see there's dirt here the road kind of comes down meets here turnupseed struck him roughly right in here but you can see there's no turn lane going to the right so it's very different today than it was back then now back here you can see that it's a very different but the one thing I know for certain is that what has not changed I would say the center of the road the Centers of the road are still there and you can follow them those didn't move the only thing that any had any changes to it was right here at the intersection now here's what I think based on the assumption that the center of the road has not changed and you follow it and you see this Lane right here come down those two here and has a slight bend in it as it meets the 46 that would mean that the other Lane on the other side back in 1955 did not have this angle in it but the other Lane followed the lane next to it and actually used to come right through here with his dirt patches and met the 46 roughly right in here with that slight bend in it also but over on this side so the old Lane I believe came through here and stopped right here and if we look at these photos I'll show you this one here you can kind of see where it has that slight bend in it here and this is the door and Turnipseed was going James Dean was coming down this way got struck roughly in here and you can see there's a slight turn in it and you can also see that the lanes are right next to each other and there is no separation between them so back here at Google Earth that would mean that this Lane here came down through here and matched this Lane right here which means that with the roads being more narrow that the accident most likely took place right about in here is what I'm guessing roughly in this area and that means a James Dean car James Dean's car would have slid off the road and did slightly almost cartwheeled but ended up over in this general area right here right in this section didn't end up way over here where the little memorial is but it most likely ended up in this dirt patch right about in here now back at this picture you can kind of see this fence line that comes along the road and follows the curvature of the road and there is the intersection with that slight bend in it and here on Google Earth that intersection with the slight bend in it would have come through here had that slight Bend here which tells me the fence would have come along through here and roughly right in this general area right here so my guess is that his car came to a stop right about in here right almost almost right in the middle of this dirt patch that's my opinion that's what I think and like I said based on the assumption that this portion of the road is still pretty much exactly in the same location it was in 1955 then in my calculations and in my opinion James Dean would have come to a stop right here he and his mechanic his mechanic lived although they were both unconscious James Dean took the brunt of the hit the mechanic lived they were taken to the hospital in Paso Robles he was pronounced dead but this right here should be the exact spot roughly or the memorial should be because this most likely is the exact spot where James Dean was actually found dead in his car or from the car accident on September 30th 1955 about 5:45 in the evening so there you have it pretty much the precise death location of James Dean from his horrible car accident from Google Earth

Channel: Forrest Haggerty Channel

Views: 443,814

Rating: 4.8401189 out of 5

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Id: zhPIi2RyyMc

Length: 13min 37sec (817 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2018