The land where Opa-locka Airport is now was originally purchased by Glenn and Lena Curtiss in 1918. The airport is just west of the City of Opa-locka's city limits in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. The famous blimp hangar was bought by the City of Miami from Key West, disassembled and moved to the southeast corner of the eventual Opa-locka Airport. A more detailed history of Opa-locka, written by Antolin Carbonell is located at:
http://www.miami-airport.com/html/opa-locka_history.html

What became today's Opa-locka Executive Airport was originally Naval Reserve Air Base Miami, then Naval Air Station Miami, and then Marine Corps Air Station Miami (MCAS Miami) in February 1952. Marine Attack Squadron 142 was transferred to Naval Air Station Jacksonville in March 1959. Marine Air Control Squadron 8 (MCAS-8) was stationed at MCAS Miami from 1956 until early 1958. I don't know if another squadron remained at MCAS Miami until a later date. The air station was closed as a Department of the Navy installation in 1959. It was transferred to Dade County in the early 1960's except for the federal portion of the airport that remains as Coast Guard Air Station Miami. The non-air station land south of NW 135th Street down to NW 119th Street (E and W 65th Street in Hialeah across the street) between LeJeune Road and Red Road was auctioned off by the U. S. General Services Administration except for the large parcel of land given to Dade County for use as a regional park (now Amelia Earhart Regional Park) and the land given to the State of Florida for building the Gratigny Parkway south of NW 135th Street. The airfield portion became an auxiliary airport under the Dade County Port Authority which became the Dade County Aviation Department in the early 1970's. The airport was renamed to Opa-locka Executive Airport in 2007.

Despite what you may see on stupid local TV news stations, newspapers, magazines, websites like airliners.net and LiveATC.net, Florida DOT road signs and Miami-Dade County street signs, there is no upper-case "L" in the name of the city or the airport because it is the first letter after a contraction of the full name with the hyphen and the first letter after the hyphen is never capitalized under grammar rules. It is Opa-locka, not Opa-Locka, Opa Locka, etc.

STRANGE BUT TRUE - THIS SITE IS BANNED BY MDAD AT MIA: For unknown reasons the Information Systems Division at the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, which owns and operates Miami International Airport and outlying airports like Opa-locka, has banned my website for all airport-owned computers and apparently the Aviation Director and the county Mayor can not overrule the manager of the division despite the wealth of historical information on the site. Fortunately the information systems manager can not prohibit county employees from viewing my site on their mobile devices and personal computers.