Beale Air Force Base: Eyes in the Sky

The flat, open terrain of eastern Yuba County caught the military's eye during World War II. In 1942, the Army established Camp Beale — named for Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a 19th-century military officer, diplomat, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California. The camp sprawled across 87,000 acres and became a major training installation, housing up to 60,000 personnel at its peak, including the 13th Armored Division. Camp Beale also served as a prisoner-of-war facility, holding captured German soldiers who worked on local farms during the labor shortages of wartime. After the war, the camp was briefly deactivated before the Air Force claimed it in 1948, redesignating it Beale Air Force Base. Beale's transformation into a strategic reconnaissance hub began in the 1960s. In 1966, the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing relocated to Beale, bringing with it the most extraordinary aircraft ever built: the SR-71 Blackbird. Capable of flying at Mach 3+ and above 85,000 feet, the SR-71 could survey 100,000 square miles of territory per hour — and nothing in any nation's arsenal could catch it. Beale became the Blackbird's only permanent home base. From Yuba County runways, SR-71s launched on missions that took them over the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, the Middle East, and every other hotspot of the Cold War. The sonic booms of departing Blackbirds became a familiar sound to Yuba-Sutter residents. When the SR-71 was retired in 1990, Beale's reconnaissance mission continued with the U-2 Dragon Lady — the legendary high-altitude spy plane that had been operating from the base since 1976. The U-2 remains active today, along with the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, keeping Beale at the center of America's intelligence-gathering capabilities. The base's economic impact on Yuba-Sutter is enormous: over $700 million annually, with approximately 10,000 military and civilian jobs. It remains the largest single employer in Yuba County.