[1][5] In the early 2020s, following upgrades, Weequahic Park began serving as the home game site for the Rutgers University Scarlet Raiders baseball team.

Tradition holds that the spring-fed lake in the park (once a cove) stood as the boundary between the Raritan and Hackensack bands of Lenape Indians.

In 1896, the Essex County Park Commission purchased a 28-acre tract of land in the area of James Jay Mapes's famous experimental farm.

[12] By 1899, a total of 265 acres of saltwater wetland surrounded by open farmland and steep wooded slopes had been acquired, and what was then called Weequahic Reservation was established.

It was founded in 1992 by a group of local long-distance runners who helped produce the 2.2 mile Weequahic Lake Trail.

[17] As of 2022, it has new offices in the Feldman Middleton Jr. Community Center, itself named for a cofounder of the Weequahic Park Sports Authority.

The Olmsted Brothers drafted pIans for converting the existing spring-fed boggy wetlands into a recreationaI lake.

Kinds of fish reported in Weequahic Lake include:[22][23] largemouth bass; channel catfish; Northern brown bullhead; yellow perch; white perch; bluegill; black crappie; pumpkinseed; golden shiner; Eurasian carp; killifish; and goldfish.

Ronald B. Christian Recreation Complex, south of the lake, was originally a half-mile racing oval built around or before the 1850s for equestrian competition at the Waverly Fair.

In 1924 the Governor Franklin Murphy Monument sculpted by J. Massey Rhind was unveiled in the northeast area of the park.