This park is dedicated after Ralph M. Hines. Ralph is known for being one of the developers of Lake Delton! In 1926, he and William Newman, owner of a Chicago construction company, decided to build a resort area in the tiny Delton, Wisconsin area (as the community of Lake Delton had been known at the time). They engaged a local land agent to purchase tracts of land along both banks of a stretch of Dell Creek.After taking title to the tracts, They brought engineers and construction crews to the area, who built a 30 feet (9.1 m) high dam near the confluence of Dell Creek and the Wisconsin River. They built a 1,000 feet (300 m) long dike along the dam.They also created 1,000 acres (400 ha) of artificial shoreline for the resort area.
They were particularly knowledgeable about dam and dike construction as his companies had done a majority of the caisson work that downtown Chicago skyscrapers are built upon. Caisson work involves building retaining, watertight structures used, for example, to work on the foundations of a bridge pier or for the construction of a concrete dam.