It was constructed by the Challenger Air Pilots' Association, a group of 15 to 20 black aviators that included pilots Cornelius Coffey, John C. Robinson, Janet Bragg, Earl W. Renfroe, and Harold Hurd, on the site of an abandoned airfield.
It was approved as an airfield by the United States Department of Commerce and was the only accredited black-owned Airport in the country.
The airport was managed by Robinson, who began teaching other members of the Challenger club to fly in the spring of 1933.
The surrounding white communities, such as Blue Island and Midlothian, did not approve of this activity, and their police sometimes arrested black pilots if they were forced to land before reaching the airport.
Many of the flight school instructors entered the Tuskegee Airmen Program during World War II.