Hope Municipal Airport was previously known as Southwest Proving Ground and was used during World War II as an airfield for bombers and a testing ground for artillery shells and air bombs. When construction was completed in 1941, it had the third longest runway in the United States. The Army Air Force Proving Ground Command 616th Army Air Corps Detachment used the facility to primarily test ammunition during WWII. Construction originally included the hangar, night landing plant, heating plant, storage building, bomb assembly building, concrete runways and hangar apron. The building which housed high explosives magazine and bomb assembly is now under private ownership and located on land adjacent to the airport.