Creech Air Force Base spent most of its history known as Indian Springs AFB or Indian Springs Field, and began existence as Indian Springs Auxiliary Airfield, rapidly constructed in Nevada the month after the Pearl Harbor attack. Indian Springs was immediately entered into service as a training camp for Army Air Force air-to-air gunnery training, and as a diversion field for Las Vegas Army Airfield. In 1947 Las Vegas AAF inactivated, and so did Indian Springs.

One year later, Indian Springs was reactivated as Indian Springs Air Force Base, with a new role as a new weapons systems and aircraft research and testing. Among these missions were support for nuclear arms testing at the Nevada Proving Grounds, high altitude balloon search and retrieval, new gunnery and rocketry systems, and testing of experimental aircraft. For a period of the 1950s and 1960s Indian Springs housed some of the most advanced aircraft and air weapons systems in the world.

In the 1960s Indian Springs was transferred to Tactical Air Wing and redesignated as Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field. Indian Springs mission was focused on monitoring of Nellis range, and became the remote training site of the USAF Thunderbirds elite air demonstration squadron.

Indian Springs was renamed Creech Air Force Base in 2005, in honor of "Father of the Thunderbirds" Wilbur L. "Bill" Creech, former commander of Tactical Air Command. Also in the 2000s Creech AFB began to house the 3rd Special Operations Squadron and 42nd Attack Squadron, operating unmanned flying drones, and returning Creech to its history as a base of advanced special aircraft development.