The park is named after Jonathan Dickinson, a Quaker merchant who was shipwrecked in 1696, with his family and others, on the Florida coast near the present-day park. He wrote a journal about their encounters with local tribes, and their journey up the coast to St. Augustine.
A man known as Trapper Nelson lived on the banks of the Loxahatchee River after coming to the area in the 1930s, living off the land trapping and selling furs. He soon became known as the Wildman of the Loxahatchee. After he died in 1968 the state got his land, and gave it to the park.
The United States Army established Camp Murphy, a top-secret radar training school, in the area that is now the park, in 1942. The camp included over 1,000 buildings, and housed more than 6,000 officers and soldiers. The camp stopped being used in 1944, after only two years. Most of the camp buildings were torn down, but some of the building foundations remain. The property was given to the State of Florida in 1947, and opened as a state park in 1950.
