[10] Her plane was one of several hundred destroyed in a 1945 blimp hangar fire at the Naval Air Station Richmond, part of which was rebuilt as the park.

[11][12] The Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Park was originally part of the Naval Air Station Richmond, which came into existence when the U.S. federal government acquired by eminent domain 2,107 acres of undeveloped land[13][14] On September 15, 1942 it was commissioned as a base for U.S. Navy blimps in World War II to help protect ships on the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico from German submarine attacks.

On September 15, 1945, three years to the date the base was commissioned, a hurricane and subsequent fire destroyed all three 17-story wood hangars and everything inside: 366 military and civilian aircraft, 25 blimps and more than 100 vehicles.

[15][16] A connection to the World War II past is evident today at the south entrance to the park off SW 184th St., where a large concrete directional arrow still stands in the ground, pointing north – a guide for blimp and airplane pilots who landed at the Naval Air Station.

The parcel for the Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Park and Campground (and Zoo Miami) was acquired in 1974 as part of a 1,010-acre land transfer from the U.S. government to Miami-Dade County.

"[23] On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated the park and campground, severely damaging most of the picnic shelters and other buildings and flattening many of the trees.