Early in its existence, the park was the site of the Southern Exposition, but later became mostly known for hosting the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival and northern portions of the annual St. James Court Art Show.

[1] During the 1883 Southern Exposition in, 13 of the park's 17 acres (69,000 m2) were temporarily "roofed in" and used to showcase Thomas Edison's light bulb, one of the first large-scale public displays of the invention.

In 1901, they hired nationally renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to draw up a ground plan.

Those plans finally came to fruition in 1904–05 when the old DuPont mansion was demolished and the basic outlines of the park as seen today were put into place.

At the time, the Spanish mission style of architecture was in vogue, and Olmsted's firm used it in its design for an open-air women and children's shelter and a gymnasium for men and boys.

The original walking trails from Louisville's 1883 Southern Exposition, which spilled over into the DuPont estate, were kept in place.