Venice's first recorded flight arrived on January 13, 1927, when pioneer pilot Capt. George Haldeman landed on Nassau Street with a crate of fresh strawberries for the Hotel Venice, but a serious effort to build an official airport did not come until the mid-1930s. In 1935, the Civil Aeronautics Authority and the Works Progress Administration approved east-west and north-south landing strips near the Tamiami Trail and north of the first Venice golf course. On January 26, 1936, concrete was poured for the airport marker identifying the sod runways and distinguishing the field as more than an emergency landing strip. A hangar with space for planes, offices, a flying school, and a repair shop was completed in 1939, and the city dedicated the Fred Albee Municipal Airport that January after private pilot Fred Albee gave land for it. The dedication included speeches, a fish fry, a ball, parachute jumpers, stuntmen, and skywriting. The airport served many users: Steve Albee, Jr., flew patients to the Florida Medical Center; visitors arrived for seasonal events such as the Tarpon Tournament; crop dusters operated there; National Airlines began using it in 1939; and the Venice Aviation Club, formed in 1938 by members including Steve Albee, Jr., James Cousins, Finn Caspersen, and J.E. Darby, raised money for improvements and became a major user. George Hauser was the first Venice student to solo, and his daughter, Betty Hauser Arnall, was the first woman pilot from the Venice area. The Army Air Corps used the municipal airport while building the Venice Army Air Base during World War II, and after the war that base became a civilian airport in 1946. Both airports operated until the 1950s, when the School Board acquired the Albee Airport land and began building an educational complex on it.