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| 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. |
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Photos © Debbie Stock
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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. |
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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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