Park River is a city in Walsh County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 1,424 at the 2020 census. Park River was founded in 1884. The controversial and often peripatetic father of John D. Rockefeller, William Avery Rockefeller, lived for a time on a 160-acre ranch in Park River that his son had purchased for him. The senior Rockefeller lived in the town through the 1890s, even after the original property was sold by his son in 1889.