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Vandenberg

 


 

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE

Vandenberg is 55 miles north of Santa Barbara. The base's nearest cities are Lompoc seven miles southeast, and Santa Maria 17 miles northeast. Off  Highway 1 is the clearly marked Vandenberg exit.  

Vandenberg and Central California's coastal residents consider their environment mild. The 150 square mile area midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles is surrounded by the Santa Ynez Mountains, the Pacific shore, and ranches of northern Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. The land here juts further into the Pacific than any point in California, receiving moderate rainfall, daily fog and no snow. The hills are green in 
winter and turn a burnished gold in summer. 

housing.jpg  
Photos © Debbie Stock  

Larger in acreage (98,400) than the nearby cities of Lompoc, Santa Maria and Guadalupe combined, Vandenberg is the largest entity within the area. 

Base housing includes new mini-tracts with one-car garages. Efficient, clean and a place to call your own.

 
The year 1941 brought with it the beginnings of unprecedented change to California's picturesque Central Coast. Once a haven for wild game and cattle grazing, some 86,000 acres of open lands in the Lompoc/ Guadalupe/ Santa Maria triangle passed to the United States Army, and practically overnight became the site of a huge military encampment called Camp Cooke. As a training center for armored and infantry troops, young recruits assigned to Cooke were forged into combat-ready soldiers and shipped overseas for duty against German and Japanese forces. 

Transformation of Camp Cooke into the nation's first space and ballistic missile operational and training  base began in 1957 when it was transferred to the United States Air Force. In the proceeding year it was renamed  Vandenberg Air Force Base. 
 


 

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