The northern end of Dolores Park is located directly across the street from Mission High School.

On its eastern, southern and western sides, the park is surrounded by residential buildings of two to four stories, in various architectural styles.

[3] South of the park is a hillside area known as "Dolores Heights," while The Castro neighborhood is located a short distance to the west.

[6] Native Americans of the Chutchui village of the Yelamu tribe inhabited the area prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries, who founded nearby Mission Dolores in 1776.

The graves were moved to Colma (via Southern Pacific railroad), where they still rest today at Hills of Eternity and Home of Peace Cemeteries.In 1903, over 1,000 property owners from the southern side of San Francisco formed the Mission Park Association, which introduced a ballot measure to buy the former Jewish cemetery area and turn it into a park.

[9] In 1906–07, the park served as a refugee camp for more than 1600 families made homeless by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Some people kept their temporary shacks as houses and a few still survive today scattered across western San Francisco.

[3] Until after World War II, the Mission District was largely inhabited by European Americans, which from the 1950s to the 1970s were replaced by an influx of Latino immigrants.

"[14] Dolores Park has hosted political rallies, festivals, Aztec ceremonial dances, Cinco de Mayo celebrations, San Francisco Mime Troupe performances, and an annual "Hunky Jesus" competition on Easter by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

[29][30][31] The city has made repeated attempts to prevent the event from happening, e.g. by installing Botts dots in 2020,[32][33] using kettling and mass arrests in 2023 and by blocking off streets and part of the park in 2024.

Up to 2016, more than $20 million were spent on the park's first upgrades in six decades, including the installation of additional toilets to address problems with public urination.