Neal Cassady on his centennial birthday. Cassady was a major figure and muse of the 1950s Beat Generation and 1960s counterculture movements, born on February 8, 1926.

Although born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cassady grew up primarily in the flophouses of lower downtown Denver, Colorado, with his alcoholic father.

Cassady served as the primary model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's classic novel On the Road, and as the character Cody Pomeray in many of Kerouac's other works. He was also a "secret hero" in Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl.

In the 1960s, Cassady became famous as the driver of the psychedelic bus "Furthur" for Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, as chronicled in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.