The park is named for the splash dam that Johnny McCall built on White Deer Creek in 1850. He used the waters that flowed from the dam to power a sawmill. Sixteen years later the dam was rebuilt to provide water for a series of splash dams that were used to float white pine logs to the sawmills on the West Branch Susquehanna River at Watsontown. The park's facilities were originally constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1933. The mill and dam are long since gone, but they are remembered along with Johnny McCall in the name of McCalls Dam State Park.