Marion County Park and Lake grew out of two Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal programs created during the Depression of the nineteen thirties, when the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration sought to put men to work and conserve natural resources. In 1934, after Marion County was designated a drought area, voters approved a fifteen-thousand-dollar bond issue to buy land for a lake project. County Engineer James Meisner, site designer; Lieutenant Robert Horsley, commanding officer of Civilian Conservation Corps Black Veterans Company Number 4755; and Superintendent Edward C. McBurney, Soil Conservation Service engineer of the dam, were responsible for completing it in three years. The area honors those who built the dam, sandboxes, skating rink, skeet and trap shoot, stone structures, ball field, swimming area, parapets, entrance gate, arched bridges, checkers, and tennis and croquet courts, and it continues to provide public enjoyment while reflecting the history of its era. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.