Once you leave the city limits you begin to march backward in time. The hustle and bustle of the urban area is exchanged for the peaceful landscape of Miguelito Canyon. You can almost absorb the history surrounding this canyon when you roll down the windows and breath in the atmosphere.

My wife and I recently gassed up the family limo, packed a picnic lunch and headed south on "I" Street. We slowly traveled for about 8 miles down Miguelito Canyon Road to the Sudden Ranch Gate. It was a truly wonderful experience and while it was only 8 miles in distance, it was 100 years in time.

Miguelito Creek was once a docile stream that flowed all year round. All that changed beginning in 1879, for several decades following as heavy winter rains swelled the channel, the creek overflowed its banks and damaged the road. The creek still supplies ample water for crops and animals. Later realigned to its current position, Miguelito Canyon Road has served the Celite mine, Vandenberg AFB and the many working ranches in the area for over 120 years.

A snowstorm on January 11, 1949 closed the road, and many surrounding roads, for two days. About two-inches of the white stuff accumulated on the valley floor to the delight of area children and the irritation of the 5,844 Lompoc residents. Travelers were stranded at the Las Cruces stage stop near the intersection of US 101 and Highway 1 for two nights. Snow has fallen periodically in the years since 1949, but this was the all-time record accumulation of snowfall for the valley.

So, history affords us the opportunity to see that El Nino, La Nina and global warming are not directly related to any specific industrial period. Serious rain, draught and even snowstorms have occurred at the will of nature for millions of years - and will continue to occur well beyond our lifetime.

Miguelito Canyon was home to the first black family in Lompoc. Squire Wilkerson was a hard working family man who came to Lompoc to work at the Celite Mine in 1908. He found that he liked the area so he leased some farmland and raised hogs and row crops. His family joined him from Los Angeles in 1910 and he raised 10 children on his ranch.

Railroad tracks make their way from the White Hills siding near "A" and Laurel to the World Minerals Celite Mine. Thousands of tons of bulk diatomaceous earth are slowly moved down these tracks each year. Trucks now haul most of the packaged material from the mine to Los Angeles for trans-shipment to ports all over the world.

The diatomaceous earth industry began around 1878 when Arthur and John Balaam mined and shipped 1,000 tons of the chalky material from Lompoc to San Francisco from his "Lost Chance" ranch by wagon and sailing ship. In 1893, they formed the Celite Mine Company later selling it in 1910 to John Mansville (JM) who eventually owned 5,000 acres in the area.

Diatomaceous earth was originally used exclusively as construction material, but now it has a much wider use in hundreds of products including industrial filtration, toothpaste and women's make-up. The "JM" diggings were eventually sold and are now known as the "World Minerals Celite Mine".

Miguelito Park was once the hub of sheep shearing operations for the ranches operated by hard-working Swiss-Italian settlers in Honda Canyon. Sweaty men and bounding dogs would round up the sheep from nearby meadows. The roundup would last several hours early in the day, with the sheep usually arriving at the shearing pens in the late morning. Of course, the dogs were much smarter than the men and they lounged in the shade, as they would toil at shearing the musty animals while women served cool drinks and nourishment until they had harvested all of the wool the herds had to offer. Then as the sun began to settle behind the hills they loaded the sheering's into wagons, which were driven by oxen the next day for delivery by ship to distant mills.

George Washington Frick donated a parcel of thickly wooded land to Lompoc in 1875 and it quickly became known as "the picnic grounds". Miguelito is Lompoc's first park and it became a full-fledged County Park in 1922.

It has hosted hundreds of family gatherings throughout the years. The cooking pits have roasted thousands of pounds of tri-tip, linguisa and chicken; toasted butter/garlic coated bread and simmered hundreds of gallons of pinquito beans. As family yarns were spun, the men cooked, women sunned and the children played in the park. Many couples have been married under the beautiful oak trees as their proud families looked on.

It is a beautiful setting with a year-round creek, footbridges and sharply rising hills on each side of the road. Unlike parks in the city limits, it is protected from the afternoon winds and is well shaded in the summer. Nearby Frick Springs supplies much of the water to the people who live in Miguelito Canyon. Mr. Frick had a good spring on his property and sold it to the city, which recently completed a permanent well and treatment facility.

Two, seemingly "out of place" palm trees across from the park mark the spot where a dairy once flourished. Myra Manfrina wrote in 1971: "The original Malone Ranch was sold to John C. Lind and today is the property of Mr. and Mrs. James P. Larsen. The house has been torn down and part of it used to build Larsen's home. The dairy house and the two palm trees are all that remain of the Lind place now." The house is gone, but the once mysterious palm trees remain.

From the Sudden Gate at the end of Miguelito Canyon Road we can clearly see Honda Canyon and Tranquillion Peak on the right and Oat Mountain on the left. They are all a part of the sprawling 98,000-acre Vandenberg AFB today, but they were once home to scores of Swiss-Italian ranch families who raised sheep, cattle, crops and kids.

Tranquillion Peak is the tallest point on the coast of California. It rises some 2,159 feet above the nearby Pacific to dominate the local landscape. The US Air Force long ago flattened a building pad and began using it as a photo platform to monitor rocket launches from Vandenberg. The view from the mountain is breathtaking on a clear day.

Captain Robert Sudden bought and founded the 14,500-acre Sudden Ranch in 1883, which lies beyond the gate. Sudden first constructed a wharf near the ranch site in 1880, bought the ranch and operated it until his death in 1908. He was prominent in the shipping industry, owning numerous ships, constructing and operating all of the local wharfs until the railroad was completed in 1901.

A small community was formed in Red Roof Canyon (now the site of Space Launch Complex-6). The center of community life was focused on the Sudden Depot where the Honda School held session between 1902 and 1911. The road that Sudden built from his wharf near Canada del Jolloru (near the old Coast Guard rescue station boat house) still winds its way from the coast to the Sudden Gate and makes its way through Miguelito Canyon to Ocean Avenue. The road through Miguelito Canyon was realigned in later years to follow its current route.