Johnson State Park is located twelve miles south of Hattiesburg on U. S. Highway 49 in Forrest County, Mississippi, about 58 miles north of Gulfport. The 805 acre park was officially established in 1949 as Shelby State Park; however, it was renamed Johnson State Park in 1964. The park has a 365 acre lake which was constructed from 1941 to 1943 by prisoner-of-war labor. It is a shallow impounded lake with a maximum depth of five meters and is fed at the northern end by two streams, Morris Branch and Walls Creek.