"[2] Between 1946 and 1948, the Addicks Reservoir was constructed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to prevent a repetition of the sort of disastrous flooding that Houston experienced in 1935.

The park land had previously been occupied since the 1840s by mostly German immigrant farmers and their descendants.

Harris County leased 2,154 acres (8.72 km2) of the reservoir in 1965 and began to develop the park.

The park also has walking trails, an equestrian trail, a small zoo (including buffaloes, an ostrich, and emus) and aviary, playgrounds, soccer fields, little league and softball fields, a football field with a chalkboard, four lighted tennis courts, eight picnic pavilions, horseshoe courts, and hundreds of picnic tables and grills.

The Harris County War Memorial is found in this park, next to the Eldridge Parkway entrance.