posted 03-29-2021 05:31 PM               

Space Cover #603: What's a Muroc?

The cover above was carried on the maiden flight of the Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, a jet-and-rocket powered research plane, by test pilot John Martin on February 4, 1948. And it was postmarked at Muroc, CA that day. So, what's a Muroc?

We're all familiar with Edwards AFB, California, where numerous rocketplanes touched the edge of space, the Space Shuttle often landed, and a number of other aeronautical firsts were achieved. Well, before it was Edwards, it was Muroc. And now for a little postal history...

The first permanent settlers in the area were brothers Ralph and Clifford Corum, and Clifford's wife Effie in 1910, at the western edge of Rodriguez Dry Lake. The Corums recruited more settlers in the area and built a general store. They petitioned the US Post Office to establish a post office called Corum at their general store. However, with a Coram, California PO already on the books, the US Post Office demurred. The Corums tried again, this time naming their proposed post office "Muroc", their name backwards. The Muroc, California post office was officially established on December 17, 1910.

Above is a postcard postmarked at Muroc July 7, 1913, two-and-a-half years after the post office opened. It mentions that "It is extremely hot here…", a common theme in most correspondence from Muroc.

The small community had little going for it for the next 30 years. The local business consisted of providing water to passing freight trains, making moonshine whiskey, and occasional stops by automobile and airplane developers wanting to use the expanse of the dry lake for testing. The name of Rodriguez Dry Lake became anglicized into Rogers Dry Lake.

In September 1933, a small Army contingent arrived to set up a bombing and gunnery range on the eastern side of the dry lake. Over the next eight years, the total Muroc Bombing and Gunnery Range staff consisted of about a dozen people, in a fairly low-key effort.

Meanwhile on February 22, 1935, famed airman Wiley Post did an emergency landing on the dry lake in his early pressure suit that looked to be straight out of a monster movie, and scared-the-stuffing out of a local car tinkerer out in the middle of the dry lake.

As shown on the cover above, a Muroc airmail stop was started on May 19, 1938 to celebrate National Air Mail Week. I’ve got an old 8mm film of this event, including a snake slithering over the desert floor and across one of these covers... still quite the rough and tumble place!

On July 10, 1941 as the US started to gear up for entry into World War II, 140 more troops were moved to Muroc to expand the bombing range operation and to add flight testing to its' mission. After Pearl Harbor Day, the contingent swelled to over 40,000 people, drowning the little community of Muroc in Army tents. On July 23, 1942, the area was renamed Muroc Army Air Base. On November 8, 1943 the name was changed to Muroc Army Air Field.

On September 1, 1943, a separate post office for the military was established, called "Muroc, Calif. Sta No. 1". An example is shown above. Station 1 was reported to have stayed in service until August 15, 1948, but I have not seen Station 1 postmarks after 1945.

During the war years, the flight-test side of Muroc hosted 44 tests of rocket-assisted-takeoffs between April 7 and April 24, 1942, and seven powered tests of the MX-324 rocketplane between July 5 and July 26, 1944.

Postwar, the NACA established a presence at Muroc in September, 1946, with the arrival of the famed X-1 rocketplane. On December 12, 1948, Muroc (by then an Air Force Base) was renamed in honor of Capt. Glenn Edwards, a test pilot who had perished there six months earlier. The post office took a while to pick up the new name, using "Muroc" in their postmark up until October 31, 1951 (below).

Perhaps one of the other SCOTW contributors can tackle the postal history for the Cape Canaveral/KSC area(?).