In 1945-46 the Litchfield Garden Club created this park on land donated by the Litchfield Dairy Association. The club's Memorial Committee, composed of Jessie Bowersox, Martha Beauchampet and Pauline Kropschot, used landscaping and green space to beautify the area, which had been used as a trash dump. Its focal point was a stone memorial honoring ten local men who died in World War II. The committee designated the adjacent one-mile section of M-99 as Memorial Mile. On September 8, 1946, the Litchfield Garden Club dedicated the park and its World War II memorial. Norman Isott designed the memorial, which Yunker Memorials, Inc. produced using crab orchard stone. Approximately seven hundred people attended the ceremony, including family members of the men honored on the memorial. That same year, the National Council of the Federated Garden Clubs of North America gave the Litchfield Garden Club an Outstanding Achievement Award for the project.