Created by Act of Congress in 1890, the park comprises 1,754 acres (2.74 mi2, 7.10 km2), generally along Rock Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River.

[5] Rock Creek Park was established by an act of Congress signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison on September 27, 1890, following active advocacy by Charles C. Glover and other civic leaders and in the wake of the creation of the National Zoo the preceding year.

The Rock Creek Park Act authorized the purchase of no more than 2,000 acres (810 ha) of land, extending north from Klingle Ford Bridge in the District of Columbia (approximately the northern limit of the National Zoo), to be "perpetually dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasure ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the United States".

[6] The Act also called for regulations to "provide for the preservation from injury or spoliation of all timber, animals, or curiosities within said park, and their retention in their natural condition, as nearly as possible".

[10] Like the rest of the city's public courses, it was segregated until 1941, when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes ordered them all opened to African Americans.

The loose pile, two stories high, was a popular, if unmarked and unsanctioned, attraction, and their removal in 2022 drew local[12][13] and even national[14][15] attention.

The misperception was fed by the 2002 discovery in the park of the skeletal remains of Chandra Levy, a federal intern whose disappearance had attracted national media attention.

[19] Recreation facilities include a golf course; equestrian trails; sport venues, including a tennis stadium which hosts major professional events; a nature center and planetarium; the Carter Barron Amphitheatre, an outdoor concert venue; and picnic and playground facilities.

Rock Creek is a popular venue for jogging, cycling, and inline skating, especially on the long, winding Beach Drive, portions of which are closed to vehicles on weekends.

Among the park's few monuments is a pink granite bench on Beach Drive south of the Peirce Mill, dedicated on November 7, 1936, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in memory of former French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand.

[22] The barn is also home to Rock Creek Riders, a therapeutic riding program for adults and children with special needs in the D.C. area.

Past participants in the program include brain-injured veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and people with autism, cerebral palsy, or attention deficit disorder.

Dating back to 1934, it is the oldest part of the trail in the park, and the same age as the Devil's Chair and Saddle Club Bridges farther south.

[25] The trail remains on the west side until just south of Klingle Bridge where it crosses back to the east and leaves the park to enter the Zoo property.

[30] The crushed bluestone trail was constructed from the Nature Center, past Wise Road to a turnaround loop just southwest of Beach Drive and the D.C.

[42] These first sections of trail were 4 to 8 feet wide with rough pavement, steep slopes, poor visibility and sharp curves.

[47] Six months later, under pressure from The American Automobile Association and the governments of D.C. and Montgomery County, the park service decided not to close the section of Beach.

In 1991, a loosely knit, cyclist-dominated group called "Auto-Free D.C." renewed the push to ban automobile traffic on Beach Drive.

They suggested limited road closures to discourage commuters, but allow access to most locations in the park by car.

When NPS failed to take up their suggestion, the group led a series of "rolling road block" protests which aimed to peaceably draw attention to the cause by disrupting rush hour traffic.

Nonetheless, the protests led to some confrontations and arrests, and at one point the Military Road Bridge was graffitied with anti-automobile slogans.

An additional alternative created by the People's Alliance for Rock Creek (PARC), a group consisting of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and 18 other advocacy groups, suggested making Beach Drive auto-free north of Broad Branch as a means of completing the trail envisioned in 1965.

[54] In 2003, in an attempt to appease both groups, the Park Service proposed extending the weekend closures of Beach Drive to weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Work on Beach Drive between Joyce and Bingham, which improved a short section of trail near the bridge over the creek was completed on September 27, 2019.

After the 1963 closure experiment, another was attempted in 1967 on Beach between Joyce and Broad Branch on Sunday mornings, but the response was not positive and it was discontinued.

[46][54] On more than one occasion in the 1970s they experimented with Saturday closures in the summer, once to support a new bicycle concession near Carter Barron, which generated no negative response, but also little use.

[48] In 1985, the hours were increased from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. Sunday from early April to Veterans Day on upper Beach Drive and year-round between Joyce and Broad Branch roads.

[66][4] By 1998 the closures had expanded to include not just the three sections of Beach but also the entirety of Bingham and Sherril Drives within the park and last all year long.