An August 12, 1926 article in the Livingston Manor Times noted that “An airplane passed over the Manor yesterday afternoon, headed in a southerly direction.” At that time, such sightings were rare enough to make local headlines. It also sparked the imaginations of two Livingston Manor mechanics; Harry Sturdevant and Merritt Tompkins. Both men, being garage proprietors, became not only interested in flying, but as mechanics, the building their own planes as well. In 1932, as a result of this interest, the men rented the old cauliflower field, sensing to be an ideal location for a landing strip, located on the flats of the Blake Barker farm. Leveling off a runway with the use of road machinery, it was their design, according to the Liberty Register, “to put Livingston Manor on the air map with a landing field that aviators may drop in on and take off at will.”

In 1946, the brothers Albert and Manny Gottlieb, better known as “Putt” and “Duke,” took over the ownership of the airport. Both being veterans of World War II, Putt was a fighter pilot, flying American Warhawk, Thunderbolt and Mustang fighter planes as well the  British Spitfire aircraft over the African and European war theaters. Now at the old Sturdevant-Tompkins landing field, the Gottliebs expanded hanger and tie-down services, along with providing charter service and student flight training. To help make ends meet, the brothers later acquired what became a profitable American Motors Jeep agency. In February of the year 1971, the Gottliebs sold the Livingston Manor Airport.