Maize, potatoes, and bananas were grown, cotton was attempted in the 1860s, and sugar cane was produced until a cold spell in the 1870s.

The area was relatively isolated from Brisbane until the railway line from Ipswich crossed the river from Chelmer to Indooroopilly in 1875.

[1] From the late 1880s onwards there was an increased interest in Queensland in healthy outdoor recreation, and the flood-prone grassland on which the park was later sited was used as a lacrosse field in the 1890s.

The reserve was vested in the Sherwood Shire Council, to be held in trust for recreation purposes, and the park's primary role since then has been as a leased venue for various team sports, mainly cricket and hockey, but also including soccer, rugby league, and Australian Rules football.

[1] The outpouring of grief in Australia that accompanied the deaths, and overseas burial, of 60,000 service people in World War I, led to a period of memorial building across the nation.

[2] Funded by public subscriptions, the memorial was designed by Mr I Bennet, and was erected by Andrew Lang Petrie Monumental Works, at a cost of £225.

On a copper scroll made by Ernest Gunderson, 51 soldiers and one nursing sister were included in a list of Sherwood Shire's fallen.

Plaques representing each of the three armed services have also been added to the north, east and west sides of the monument since 1985.

A single line of figs and camphor laurels continued west from the memorial towards Appel Street.

A trophy field gun captured by the Australian Imperial Force near Abancourt, France, in August 1918 was also sited near the memorial from the early 1920s, but it was removed before 1952.

By 1924 the park contained three cricket ovals, with a shelter and dressing sheds, three croquet lawns, and two tennis courts.

The Graceville Croquet Club was formed in March 1919, with Thomas Murray Hall, Member of the Queensland Legislative Council, as its first Patron.

The two changing rooms and storage area within the brick ground floor have been renovated and reconfigured over time, and the current latticed balustrade at the front of the seating was introduced since 1985.

Soon after 1968 some practice-bowling cages were installed on the south side of the park between the croquet club and the war memorial.

There were floodlights on poles around the perimeter of the park by 1961, but in 1975 the South West United Hockey Club requested new lighting, for night training.

In 1996, the steamroller, which had been in the playground since the 1960s, was moved, restored, and installed inside a roofed enclosure to the east of the car park.

The steamroller is an "S" type, four steam-horse power model, built between 1923 and 1925, by Marshall and Sons and Company, in Gainsborough, England.

An avenue of mature bauhinia, cabbage tree palms, and Chinese elms runs from Oxley road to the war memorial, and a single row of mature figs and camphor laurels runs west from the memorial to Appel Street.

Further west is the cricket clubhouse, a single-story timber building, with a low-pitched skillion roof clad in galvanised iron.

[1] The cricket grandstand that faces the number one oval is a rectangular pavilion, with a timber-trussed hipped roof clad in corrugated iron that is supported on plain timber posts.

Below the concrete capping to the walls on the east, west, and south elevations there are decorative panels of roughcast render between the projecting rows of bricks.

The shaft of the column has a gold laurel wreath imprinted on its north face, and is crowned with a polished ball, which is etched with a map of Australia, and the words "ANZAC".

Under the scroll is a small plaque reading Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria Mori.

[1] Number two oval's changing shed, which has its back to the croquet lawns, is a timber building on a concrete slab with a skillion roof clad in galvanised iron.

[1] Graceville Memorial Park was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 5 September 2006 having satisfied the following criteria.

Surviving as a highly visible remnant of the development of the Graceville district, the use of the park for team sports from the 1890s to the present demonstrates the interest in health-promoting recreation that occurred in Queensland from the late 1880s onwards.

The Brisbane City Council's expenditure on a cricket grandstand during the Depression demonstrates the continued importance of sport to Queenslanders during the 1930s.

A well-designed and substantial cricket grandstand enhances the aesthetic values of the park and is a fine example of the work of the Brisbane City Architect's Office in the 1930s.