It was formed when the man-made Arizona Canal crossed a natural, 20-foot (6.1 m) drop in the area of present-day 56th Street in the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix.

The site became a popular location for social activities before and after being used as a hydroelectric power station that provided the first electricity to Phoenix.

Murphy, a midwestern entrepreneur, had just completed work on a grading project for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in northern Arizona[3] when he won a contract to build the Arizona Canal, an irrigation canal that would take water from the Salt River for distribution, primarily for agriculture, throughout the northern part of the Valley of the Sun.

It was decided to leave the rock in place and incorporate it into the canal, letting the water flow over it, thus creating the man-made waterfall.

[7] The railway, inspired by early electric lines in California, was to use Enright "noiseless and smokeless engines" and had major investors from Phoenix, San Francisco, and Hamilton, Ohio.

[8] The Arizona Improvement Company was then developing the town of Ingleside by the falls[b] and planting the first commercial citrus orchards.

[10] In 1907, it was reported that electricity for Phoenix would be generated at Roosevelt Dam instead and power from the Arizona Falls plant[c] would supply farmers in the immediate area.

[11] By 1909, engineers of the Salt River Project (SRP), the operator of the canal system (originally the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association), decided to take over operation of the Arizona Falls power station and replace the generating equipment, increasing capacity by a third, to 700 hp.

SRP hoped that it could realize savings by ordering additional 48-inch turbines that were being built by S. Morgan Smith of York, Pennsylvania for the Granite Reef Dam power station.

[19] After the plant, which covered up the falls, was constructed, its roof doubled as a dance floor, often for guests who traveled from the nearby Ingleside Inn — the valley's first resort.

Brown and Charles Miller, ran a 24 kv line from the falls to Scottsdale to serve its initial 150 customers.

[25] After the plant was shut, the canal still flowed through the structure and remained concealed from public view; the site was not returned to a more natural state.

[26] Interest in the falls was furthered in the early 1990s when an effort began to utilize the Valley canal system for recreation and community benefit, rather than just as utilitarian infrastructure.

[28] The park was designed by Boston architect Lajos Heder and sculptor Mags Harries, under commission of the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.

[31] Heder and Harries, who are married and had worked on a prior Phoenix public art project, were selected in January 2000 after winning an open competition for the design[31] that received five entries.

[33] Poetry about water, written by Arizona's first state poet laureate, Alberto Rios, is sandblasted into concrete.

[37] SRP encourages area schoolteachers to use the facility to teach about renewable energy and other environment aspects of the site and canal system.