Delta Air Lines made its first flight that year beginning in Dallas landing in Jackson and other cities en route to Atlanta.

[5] In 1936, the Works Progress Administration's (WPA), Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) invested $62,150 to improve the airport with a terminal building and paving of an apron.

The station facility consisted of a large number of buildings based on standardized military plans and architectural drawings of the period, with the buildings designed to be the "cheapest, temporary character with structural stability only sufficient to meet the needs of the service which the structure is intended to fulfill during the period of its contemplated war use" was underway.

The station and its buildings, together with complete water, sewer, electric and gas utilities, was designed to be nearly self-sufficient, with not only hangars, but barracks, warehouses, hospitals, dental clinics, dining halls, and maintenance shops were needed.

In 1963, the City began work to annex land in Rankin County, Mississippi, to build a new airport for jets (Hawkins' longest runway was 5383 feet).

The Department of Defense initially leased 64 acres of land in Rankin County to the City of Jackson for the new Air National Guard complex and construction of the present base began on April 15, 1961.

These sleek, four-engine propeller-driven aircraft marked the beginning of the unit's world mission with a flight to Germany on Saturday, June 1, 1963.

In the year ending March 27, 2024, the airport had 20,778 aircraft operations or an average of 57 per day: 71% general aviation, 20% military, and 9% air taxi.

[2] On November 13, 2012, a Piper PA-32 single-engine plane crashed into single family homes on approach to HKS airport, killing the 3 people on board.

[10] Jackson Army Air Base was the name of an abandoned military installation in the 1978 film Capricorn One, the premise of which was a government conspiracy and hoax of a crewed space mission to Mars.