[2] The airport is located south of Paint Branch and Lake Artemesia, east of U.S. Route 1 and the College Park Metro/MARC station and west of Kenilworth Avenue.

College Park Airport was established in August 1909 by the United States Army Signal Corps to serve as a training location for Wilbur Wright to instruct two military officers to fly in the government's first airplane.

The same year on October 27, Mrs. Ralph Henry Van Deman was flown by Wilbur Wright to become the first woman to fly in a powered aircraft in the United States.

In April 1910, the Aero Club of America chapters from Washington and Baltimore chose the College Park Airport for the next James Gordon Bennett Race.

[6] The Christmas Aeroplane Company of Washington, D.C., built its first aircraft, the "Red Bird II" at College Park Airport with a claimed flight on 15 October 1911.

In 1915 Cecil Peoli, one of the world's first professional aviators, died testing his 12-cylinder Rausenburger-powered biplane at College Park in preparation for New York and St. Louis cross country flights.

In 1937 the Engineering & Research Corporation (ERCO), based across the street (Good Luck Rd, now Campus Drive) in nearby Riverdale, Maryland, used the airport to test fly the early model of the Ercoupe, an airplane designed to be spin-proof.

Today it is run as both a historic site and operating airport whose history is depicted in the 27,000 sq ft (2,500 m2) College Park Aviation Museum.

The project was approved by the county but exceeded a 198-foot (60 m) tall FAA limit for a building at location in the flight path, prompting a redesign as a 10-story hotel.

[15] In 2022, Tailwind Air announced plans to begin a scheduled flight service from College Park to Skyport Marina, on Manhattan's East Side, on board a Cessna Grand Caravan.