The original proposal by the Olmsted Brothers landscape design firm was that the parkway would connect the Middlesex Fells to the Lynn Woods Reservation in Lynn, but the full proposal was never implemented.

The first portion of the parkway, from the Stoneham-Melrose line to Main Street in Melrose, was built between 1906 and 1908, although a particularly difficult section, built on swampy land near Ell Pond Park, was not completed until 1911.

Plans to continue the parkway to Lynn Woods only advanced as far as acquiring and grading a right of way from Route 1 to Walnut Street, part of which is now taken over by the figure-eight interchange between the two roads.

[3] The Melrose/Saugus portion of the parkway was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 2003, listed along with other roadways of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston.

[2] Contributing elements to the National Register listing, in addition to the roadway, are the tree canopy that shades much of the road, and the 1930 girder bridge that carries railroad tracks over the road between Vinton and Tremont Streets in Melrose.