 Proclaimed a national park in 1986, it is named after Frederick Henry Litchfield, a Territory pioneer, who explored areas of the Northern Territory from Escape Cliffs in Van Diemen Gulf to the Daly River in 1864.Aboriginal people have lived throughout the area for thousands of years.It is important to the Kungarakan and Marranunggu peoples for whom their ancestral spirits, still considered actively present in the landscape, played a seminal role in forming the landscape, plants and animals of this area.