Known locally as Northtown, it is the second–busiest public use government airport in the Las Vegas area and the third busiest in Nevada.

Due to the attack on Pearl Harbor which occurred the same day, two of the airport's co-founders, Verald "Bud" Barrett and J. M. Murphy, left to enlist in the Army Air Corps, leaving the third co-founder, Florence Murphy, to run the airport until 1945.

[2] During an expansion project at the airport, Sky Rider Motel opened in the early 1960s featuring a swimming pool shaped like an airplane.

[2] In 1968, Hughes Tool Company purchased the airport, then called North Las Vegas Air Terminal.

[2] North Las Vegas Airport covers 920 acres (370 ha) at an elevation of 2,205 feet (672 m).