The state park is the home of Cunningham Falls, the largest cascading waterfall in Maryland, a 43-acre (17 ha) man-made lake, and the remains of a historic iron furnace.

Before the arrival of European settlers, Native Americans used the Catoctin Mountain area for hunting and fishing and also quarried it for rhyolite to make projectile points.

[5] During the 19th century, settlers began cutting the area's forests for charcoal to power the Catoctin Iron Furnace.

[6] In the 1930s, after years of clearcutting for the making of charcoal, mountain farming, and timber harvesting, the land was purchased by the Federal government.

The southern 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) were transferred to Maryland as Cunningham Falls State Park.