Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Lancaster, CA

Lancaster began in 1876 as a Southern Pacific Railroad stop in the Antelope Valley, with a station house, locomotive watering facilities, and section gang housing where the town now stands.

Developer Moses Langley Wicks formally laid out Lancaster in 1884, buying land from the railroad for $2.50 an acre, mapping streets and lots, and selling 160-acre tracts for $6 an acre; the town is believed to be named after his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Lancaster was devastated by a decade-long drought that began in 1894, then revived with nearby gold and borax discoveries in 1898 and the construction of the 233-mile Los Angeles Aqueduct starting in 1908.

Antelope Valley Union High School, completed in 1912, boasted the first dormitory system in California, created so students from far-flung desert districts could live at school instead of moving away.

Lancaster's modern growth was driven by aerospace: flight testing at nearby Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards Air Force Base), where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, brought steady growth from the 1930s onward, and many residents work at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in neighboring Palmdale for Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop.

Lancaster incorporated as a charter city on November 22, 1977, after residents pushed for local control and feared annexation by Palmdale; its population grew from about 37,000 at incorporation to 173,516 at the 2020 census, making it the 30th largest city in California.

Lancaster has about 52,400 households averaging roughly 3.1 people each, and about 60% of its homes are owner-occupied.

Lancaster forms a twin-city complex with Palmdale, and together they are the principal cities of the Antelope Valley in the western Mojave Desert, about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

Antelope Valley College began classes on September 10, 1929, as a department of Antelope Valley High School with an average daily attendance of just 13 students, making it California's smallest junior college at the time; it now serves roughly 16,000 students and hosts a satellite campus of California State University, Bakersfield.

Lancaster is home to the Civic Musical Road on Avenue G, where grooves cut into the pavement play the William Tell Overture as cars drive over them at speed; it was originally built on Avenue K for a Honda Civic commercial and was relocated after noise complaints.