For many years this park was named Linwood Park because it is the neighborhood gathering place for the Linwood Place addition. The land was originally the homestead of Mike Hrabe and later part of a farm belonging to Levi Overholser, the brother of Henry Overholser. In 1909 the farm was sold to Linwood Place Development Co. and the new addition was built on the western edge of the city. The Linwood Line extension of the streetcar system brought residents home from Downtown, traveling along NW 12, then onto Drexel Avenue before turning on a gentle curve onto NW 19. Those streetcar rails are long gone, but they made the gentle curve that runs through the north part of the park.

In 1969 the parents of Dr. Wayman Thompson, Jr. petitioned the city council to rename the park Wayman’s Park as a memorial to their son.