The park is located near the intersection of Falls Road and Lake Avenue, adjacent to the Falls Road Light Rail Stop of the Baltimore Light Rail, which runs from Cromwell Station near Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County in the south to Hunt Valley of Baltimore County.

The lake was constructed in the late 1850s after the city's 1854 purchase of the assets of the privately owned Baltimore Water Company, (founded 1805), following a long political controversy about the company's failure to extend water lines and service into the then outlying areas of town after the most recent annexation of 1818 which moved the city's northern boundary to then-called Boundary Avenue (today's North Avenue).

The system of parks for the City of Baltimore along the various stream valleys with inter-connected landscaped boulevards or parkways was designed and laid out by the famous landscape architect and developer Frederick Law Olmsted and the company later established by his sons in two famous reports in 1904 and 1926, of which Lake Roland and its Dam formed and integral part.

The lake was developed in the mid 19th century as a part of the city's municipal water system and built as the main reservoir.

[43] In the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting and in response to the general controversy revolving the display of Confederate symbols, there was debate about changing the name of the park.