JPL has grown a great deal since this photo was taken in 1950. Just compare the photo to any current map web site or app, and notice the roads and buildings that have been moved, added to, or are no longer there. The JPL Archives collections of online maps, telephone books, and photo albums can help us explore JPL’s past – when there were wind tunnels on Lab, the JPL Store was a cafeteria, and near the parking structure site there was a water-filled towing channel.

With the help of the Huntington Library, we can go back even farther, to 1931. The Huntington Digital Library has a photo of the JPL site, taken from across the lake behind the Devil’s Gate Dam. Zoom in on the foothills on the right side of the photo to see the area that would become the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Within five years, the lake was a dry river bed, the Arroyo Seco, and was chosen as the site of the famous rocket motor tests that led to the beginning of JPL. Four years after that, the first small wood frame buildings appeared along the edge of the arroyo.

This post was written for “Historical Photo of the Month,” a blog by Julie Cooper of JPL’s Library and Archives Group.

TAGS:HISTORY

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Julie Cooper, Certified Archivist

  Julie Cooper is a certified archivist who identifies and processes collections for the JPL Archives, and helps researchers find information about the history of JPL.