Page 6 - Aerospace Valley Hybrid Air Show Program - October 5-10, 2020.....

Edwards Air Force Base has long, storied history

The natural setting mineral wealth. In 1882, the Santa Fe First formed in the Pleistocene Epoch
For newcomers to the area, the Mo- Railroad ran a line westward out of and featuring an extremely flat, smooth
jave Desert can seem barren and un- Barstow toward Mojave and built a and concrete-like surface, Rogers Dry
inviting, with never-ending vistas of water stop at the edge of an immense Lakebed is a playa — or pluvial lake
Joshua trees and sagebrush. Daytime dry lakebed, roughly 20 miles south- — that spreads out over 44 square
temperatures can run into triple digits, east of Mojave. The lonely water stop miles, making it the largest such geo-
while nighttime lows can fall below was known simply as “Rod,” and the logical formation in the world.
freezing. lakebed was then called Rodriguez Dry Its parched clay and silt surface un-
Until the Southern Pacific Railroad Lake. dergoes a timeless cycle of renewal
arrived in 1876, the desert was popu- By the early 1900s, “Rodriguez” each year, as water from winter rains is
lated mostly by occasional prospectors had been anglicized into “Rodgers,” swept back and forth by desert winds,
drifting endlessly in pursuit of elusive which was then shortened to “Rogers.” smoothing it out to an almost glass-
like flatness.

The homesteaders
In 1910, the Corum family settled
at the edge of Rogers Dry Lake. In ad-
dition to raising alfalfa and turkeys,
they located other homesteaders in the
area for a fee of $1 per acre. As those
settlers moved in, the Corum broth-
ers earned contracts for drilling water Air Force photograph
wells and clearing land. They also Jan 16, 1936: A delegation of officers from Headquarters, Pacific Coast Air
opened a general store and post office. Force, inspected the Muroc Bombing and Gunnery Range. At that time, the
Their request to have the post office housing facilities consisted of tents set up for up to 65 men, and a permanent
stop named “Corum” was disallowed kitchen building. The bombing range was west of the lakebed and included
because there was already a Coram, outline targets of various aircraft types, a battleship and several buildings. Some
Calif. So they simply reversed the 3,000 bombs had been dropped in the preceding 20-day period.
spelling of their name and named it “Hap” Arnold, saw it as a one-of-a- present-day Edwards, served the Army
“Muroc.” Small, isolated homesteads
dotted the land over the next 20 years. kind “natural aerodrome” — one that Air Corps’ bombers and fighters for
could be acquired at virtually no cost several years.
The airmen arrive to the taxpayer. With the arrival of World War II,
Courtesy photograph The early homesteaders thought of Thus, in September 1933, the Muroc a permanent base sprang up for the
The Corum family, who settled near Rogers Dry Lake on May 18, 1916. Clifford Rogers Dry Lakebed as a wasteland. Bombing and Gunnery Range was es- training of combat flight crews. In
Corum and his wife Effie are second and third from left, and Clifford’s brother However, a visionary Airman com- tablished by Arnold. This remote train- July 1942, it was activated as a sepa-
Ralph is on the right.
manding March Field, Lt. Col. H. H. ing site, now a small enclave within See EDWARDS, Page 7

Aerotech News and Review
6 www.aerotechnews.com ........ facebook.com/aerotechnewsandreview October 5-10, 2020