The 8-acre Leonard Park was developed in 1883 as Evansville's first municipal park. It occupies high ground overlooking the 50-acre Lake Leota and adjacent Leota Park, with which it was combined in 1923. Lake Leota was created in 1847 when Allen's Creek was dammed to provide water power for Evansville's first mills. This lake and the land surrounding it soon became a favorite pleasure ground for Evansville citizens and it remained so throughout the nineteenth century. In 1900, the dam was removed and the lake disappeared. Finally, in 1923, citizen agitation succeeded in getting a new dam built and the lake restored. In conjunction, the City of Evansville bought additional parcels of land for parkland development. Little was done to develop this land until the Great Depression, which brought federal aid to Evansville in the form of CWA, FERA, and WPA work relief funding. These new funding sources made possible the landscaping of Leota Park and the construction of a number of fine limestone Rustic Style buildings and structures and other amenities within its boundaries, including the rip-rapping of the entire course of Allen's Creek within the park. The result is a still intact designed landscape that is a fine example of the numerous Rustic Style projects funded by the federal government during the Depression period.

Leonard-Leota Park is still actively used today and it is open to the public.