Long before there were airplanes, a small village thrived in what is now occupied by the Spruce Creek Fly-in. The village’s cemetery is all that remains and stands today as colorful testament of Spruce Creek’s early settlers. For the last two hundred years it has served as a final resting place to area inhabitants. Among the graves with the older headstones we find that Civil War soldiers are buried there. Other headstones, like the ones from the Smith family’s plot reflect some forgotten tragedies of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The large plot contains the crypts of the father and mother. To the left of the parents are buried six children who died before adulthood. To the right are twelve stillborn infants.

According to Warren Brown’s Florida's Aviation History, The first flight on the beach occurred in 1906 by Charles K. Hamilton, using Israel Ludlow's glider. The glider was pulled by an automobile and actually took place in Ormond. He went as high as 150 feet on his first try, and 250 feet on the second, before crashing into a flagpole and surviving with only a bruised knee.

Numerous flights followed, including John A. McCurdy, the United States’ 5th licensed pilot, in 1911, Phillips Page in 1912, and Ruth Law in 1913. Phillips Page has been credited for taking the first aerial photographs in Florida, while flying around the Hotel Clarendon in Daytona Beach. Many other pilots took to the skies above Daytona Beach before the beach “airport” was finally closed the winter of 1929-30.

Florida State Airways, Inc was an airline that formed in early 1930 in Daytona Beach. The airline provided service for passengers to other Florida cities and to the Bahamas, using Ryan aircraft. In January 1930, Vice President of Operations and part time barnstormer, Bill Lindley, piloted a flight to Palm Beach. While on the descent, he never pulled out of the dive and went into Lake Worth at full throttle. The combination of Lindley's death and the depression soon caused most aviation activity in Daytona Beach to stop.

Eastern Air Lines began passenger service out of Daytona Beach, flying Kingbirds and Condors. But after only a few years, Eastern did not re-bid after the airmail changes of 1934. In 1935, National Airlines won a bid on the cross-state route from Daytona Beach to St. Petersburg. In 1936, the airport was closed for repairs. National rerouted its flights to Jacksonville but Eastern became upset and called it an act of "buccaneers". National Airlines was nicknamed the "Buccaneer Route", a name that stuck for many years.

In the late 1930s, four 4000 by 150 feet runways were built, all paved. This expansion allowed DC-2 and DC-3 aircraft to land at Daytona Beach. At the time, the terminal was located on the south side of the airport.

During the war, the nearby existing fields in Ormond, Bunnell, New Smyrna Beach and DeLand were also improved and expanded by the Navy to accommodate the increased activity from the Daytona NAS. A fifth airport, designated as a Naval Air Operational Training Base, was completed in late 1943 in what is now occupied by Spruce Creek. The Spruce Creek base was constructed as a training facility and had three runways crisscrossing as well as an extra runway intersecting. After the War ended, the ownership was given back to the City of Daytona Beach in 1946.

Mckinley Conway assembled a group of investors, mostly Atlanta pilot-friends, and laid out a plan to pool their money to buy the property and arrange with a Florida developer to implement the project. They incorporated their company and named it “Fly-in Concept”. The city officials approved the plan and in early 1969 signed the purchase contract. The permitting process, which included environmental, engineering and other studies as well as numerous approvals from local and county zoning boards and the FAA lasted over a year. In July, 1970 the site plan was finally approved and the project officially launched.

Conway publishes "The Airport City: Development Concepts for the 21st Century" with his ideas of multi-modal transportation and the planning of airport business parks attractive to future private and corporate aircraft users. In the book, he expands the concept of the "total Fly-In Community" of which Spruce Creek was the first example built. Unfortunately, the 1974-1976 Real Estate Depression was too damaging and the already-started project was ground to a halt and it fell into foreclosure by the lenders.

Today, the Spruce Creek Fly-in Community is the World's Most Famous Residential Airpark™. Its grounds and homes are impeccably and immaculately groomed. Almost 5,000 residents, 1,300 homes and 700 hangars share a unique life in this private gated village. 24-hr patrolled security complements the safety, privacy and enjoyment of our residents. Frequent community-wide events and theme clubs for most any interest from flying to book reading and gardening ensure a tightly knit and friendly community hard to duplicate anywhere. John Travolta and many other celebrities have enjoyed the Spruce Creek Fly-In lifestyle and have called it home. Truly a piece of pilot's heaven.