FARMS, SPACE, BEYOND ANTELOPE VALLEY SETS SIGHTS ON THE FUTURE.

Byline: - Daily News

From the arrival of the railroad in 1876 until World War II, the Antelope Valley was a farming community.

Alfalfa, pears and almonds were irrigated by wells that pulled water from deep underground. Lancaster and Palmdale were tiny towns with dirt streets, populated by railroad workers and merchants.

The transformation came with the creation of what is now Edwards Air Force Base for testing high-performance jets and rocket planes, flown by such pilots as Chuck Yeager.

Muroc Dry Lake, east of Rosamond, had been used by the Army Air Corps since the 1930s for gunnery practice. Airmen lived in a tent camp on the dry lake shore.

After World War II, housing tracts sprang up on farmland and sagebrush desert around both Palmdale and Lancaster.

Edwards' flight-testing blossomed at the same time as the opening of aircraft manufacturing plants in Palmdale.

In 1950, the U.S. government bought back Palmdale Airport from Los Angeles County and renamed it Air Force Plant 42. Lockheed opened a plant there in 1953, and North American, Convair and Northrop Douglas followed.

Then came the first sign that aerospace is a boom-and-bust industry. The local economy crashed, led by Convair shutting its Plant 42 factory. Jobless aircraft workers moved out. Homes stood vacant. Real estate prices plunged.

It took until the mid-1970s for the economy to revive. Helping out were the 1974 completion of the Antelope Valley Freeway and Lockheed's L-1011 airliner production in Palmdale.

The 1980s brought a new boom. Rockwell International, which was already building space shuttles in Palmdale, hired more than 7,000 people to build B-1B bombers.

Palmdale's population shot from 13,000 people in 1980 to nearly 69,000 in 1990; Lancaster's went from 48,000 to more than 97,000.

The population boom again transformed the valley. Then the Cold War ended. B-2 stealth bomber jobs reached only about half the number expected.

Unemployment climbed. So did foreclosures.

But since the late 1990s, the economy has made a big turnaround. Home construction is filling up tracts, home prices are well past their 1990 peak and climbing faster than the state average, and new businesses are opening faster than they did even in the 1980s boom.

More businesses are moving into the Lancaster Business Park and Palmdale's new Fairways Business Park, many of them shifting out of the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys because of affordable space for expansion and affordable homes for employees.

Senior Systems Technology opened an electronics-component plant in Palmdale in 1998. The same year, Michaels craft stores opened a 432,000-square-foot distribution center in Lancaster. Rite Aid opened its West Coast distribution center nearby.

Countrywide Home Loans opened a loan servicing center in 2003 that now employs 1,100, with hundreds more jobs expected in the near future.

U.S. Pole, which makes streetlight poles, relocated in 2003 from Sun Valley to a new 100,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Palmdale.

The same year, Valencia-based Delta Scientific, which makes automated security barriers for U.S. embassies and other buildings, opened a 125,000-square-foot Palmdale plant.

Regent Aerospace Corp. is building an 80,000-square-foot airplane-seat refurbishing plant in the Fox Industrial Park in Lancaster.

GE Wind Energy took over wind-turbine factories in the Tehachapi area, providing more than 350 jobs.

The Antelope Valley Mall, opened in 1990, is planning its biggest expansion, with a 16-screen theater, four restaurants, a hotel and new shops planned.

Meanwhile, the giant 5,200-home Ana Verde master-planned community is going up on former cattle ranching land in southwest Palmdale. It is expected to be completed over the next six years.

The neighboring 7,200-home Ritter Ranch, mired in legal and financial battles since the 1990s real estate slump, was taken over last year by Irvine-based home developer SunCal. Development of the ranch, spread out across rolling hills and valleys in west Palmdale, will last about a decade.

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Photo:

(color) The sun setting behind mountains near Palmdale brings a golden hue to the clouds and skies.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer