Cross Ranch State Park lies on the west bank of the Missouri River about nine miles south of Washburn, alongside the much larger Cross Ranch Nature Preserve. The land was once part of an 11,000-acre ranch owned in the late 1800s by A.G. Gaines, a scout and land agent for the Burlington Northern Railroad. Bob and Gladys Levis later hoped it would become a state park, but a 1979 purchase approved by the North Dakota legislature was blocked by a statewide referral. The Nature Conservancy bought the ranch in 1982 and in 1989 donated land for the park while keeping the larger preserve, linking recreation with prairie conservation.