The first transcontinental flight, a biplane flown by Calbraith Perry Rodgers, landed in 1911 on Long Beach's sandy beach. From 1911 until the airport was created, planes used the beach as a runway.

Barnstormer Earl S. Daugherty had leased the area that later became the airport for air shows, stunt flying, wing walking and passenger rides. Later, he started the world's first flight school in 1919 at the same location. In 1923 Daugherty convinced the city council to use the site to create the first municipal airport.

Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan used to fly regularly out of Daugherty Field. Before his infamous flight from Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland in 1938, he had flown from Long Beach to New York. After authorities refused his request to continue on to Ireland, he was supposed to return to Daugherty Field, but a claimed navigational error routed him to Ireland. He never publicly acknowledged having flown there intentionally.

The main terminal building was designed by architects William Horace Austin and Kenneth Smith Wing and was constructed in 1941.

The murals and mosaics were created by artist Grace Clements and completed in 1941, with the support of the Works Progress Administration. They depict aviation, navigation, and constellations.

In the 1940s and 1950s the only airline nonstops from Long Beach Airport were to Los Angeles, San Diego, and sometimes Catalina Island; in 1962 Western Airlines introduced a daily Electra to San Francisco and one a day to San Diego. Jet schedules began in 1968; in 1969 Western Boeing 737-200s flew to Las Vegas, Oakland, and San Francisco. In 1980 the only jets were Pacific Southwest Airlines flights to SFO.

Between 1990 and 1992 Continental, Delta, TWA, and USAir ended service to LGB, and American Airlines left in early 2006. Alaska Airlines later ended mainline service, but would return in 2026. Delta Connection Regional jet flights continue at LGB, with some mainline service also returning. In February 2016 Southwest Airlines announced plans to begin service to the airport with an initial four available slots. On July 9, 2020, JetBlue announced that they would end service to the airport in October 2020, instead expanding their operations at nearby Los Angeles International Airport.

Military use

To attract the United States Navy, the City of Long Beach built a hangar and an administrative building and then offered to lease it to the Navy for $1 a year for the establishment of a Naval Reserve air base. On May 10, 1928, the U.S. Navy commissioned the field as a Naval Reserve air base (NRAB Long Beach). Two years later the city built a hangar and administrative building for the United States Army Air Corps as well. Significant developments to the little city airport began only after the city built hangars and administrative facilities for the Army and Navy in 1928–30.

As a Naval Reserve Air Base, the mission was to instruct, train and drill Naval Reserve personnel. A ground school was offered three nights a week at the base and two nights a week at the University of California in Los Angeles until 1930, when ground school was continuously offered at the base. On April 9, 1939, training in night flight began, and shortly thereafter its facilities began to be used by fleet aircraft as well.

With increased activity by airlines and the private airplane industry, particularly with Douglas Aircraft showing an interest in the Long Beach Municipal Airport, the facility needed more space. With Douglas Aircraft as a resident, the attitude of Long Beach's authorities became openly hostile to naval aviation, with its city manager saying that "the sooner the Navy gets out of the Long Beach airport, the better we will like it."

The Navy began a survey for another site, unknown to city officials at the time. Admiral Ernest J. King, then the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, and Admirals William D. Leahy, Joseph K. Taussig, and Allen E. Smith pointedly requested that the city of Long Beach repair the runways and reminded the city that the Pacific Fleet, then lying offshore in Long Beach and San Pedro harbors, had a payroll of more than $1 million a month. Eventually, the city complied with the Navy's requests.

The city remained hostile toward approving a lease on any additional land that the Naval Reserve now required.

The Navy, fed up with the city of Long Beach, decided upon the purchase of some property owned by a Mrs. Susanna Bixby Bryant, a fact made known by the commander of the base, Commander Thomas A. Gray, to the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Admiral John H. Towers. The circumstances behind the purchase were revealed to James V. Forrestal, Under Secretary of the Navy, and by him to the House Naval Affairs committee who approved the purchase. Although Comdr. Gray had offered Mrs. Bryant $350 an acre, in the best patriotic spirit she sold the property at $300 an acre.

With the site acquired, in 1941, construction funds soon followed and NAS Los Alamitos began to take shape.