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Early settlers to the Gwynns Falls region found a landscape dominated by forests, which they cut for timber and fuelwood, and later cleared for agriculture. By the mid-1700s, settlers had cleared 20% to 30% of the forested land in the mid-Atlantic region. By the mid-1800s, as much as 50% of the land had been cleared for agriculture, primarily grain and tobacco crops. The Gwynns Falls was further developed to take advantage of its water power potential. By 1900, more than two million people inhabited the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis region and only about 30% of the Gwynns Falls Watershed remained under forest cover.

By 1990, approximately 8.5 million people lived in the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis metropolitan area, which has become the fourth largest urban center in the Nation behind Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Land use in the region had shifted from agriculture to residential and commercial development, especially in places like the Gwynns Falls Watershed. Today, the watershed is home to more than 246,000 people.