Kalinga Park occupies a portion of the early German Mission Station established at Zion Hill in 1838, forming the first free European settlement in Queensland. The missionaries named Kedron Brook, but the mission closed in 1850 and the area was surveyed in 1851 prior to other settlers moving into the area. By the 1880s, this area was industrial and in 1884 much of the land now comprising the park was declared a water reserve. Kalinga is derived from Ngalin-nga, a phrase in the Turrbal dialect said to mean ""belonging to us"".