North Edwards, CA

North Edwards is a Kern County census-designated place on the high Mojave Desert, about seven miles northeast of Edwards Air Force Base at roughly 2,293 feet. The 2020 census counted 1,054 residents. The community's housing began to take shape in 1955, when a developer announced homes along Clay Mine Road within two miles of the base's north gate. North Edwards grew beside an installation that was already changing aviation.

The dry lake at Edwards has carried out important tests: the Bell XP-59A lifted off there in 1942, Chuck Yeager exceeded the speed of sound in the X-1 in 1947, and the base became the Air Force Flight Test Center in 1951. For North Edwards, that aerospace neighbor is part of the everyday landscape, along with desert roads, broad skies, and the small North Edwards Park on Lorraine Avenue. The community is a residential outpost by the base, with its own street grid and a front-row view of the Mojave's flight-test country.