[1] During winter, a three-kilometre (1.9 mi) long ice skating track is created on the surface of the lake.

The earliest known mentions of the name Jyväsjärvi are from the late 17th century, while Jyväsjoki was first attested in 1506 (iywesioki), though referring to the settlement that later became known as Jyväskylä, not the watercourse itself.

[6] According to Viljo Nissilä, the name contains the word jyvänen (genitive jyväsen) meaning "(single) grain", as a reference to fertile swiddens around the lake before the area was permanently inhabited.

Such a nickname could still refer to fertile land, perhaps in Saarioinen (southern Sääksmäki), which was historically its own administrative division (hallintopitäjä) that included the then-village of Jyväskylä, from where the names beginning with jyväs- would have spread to this area.

Another inflow is the Köyhänoja, beginning from the Köhniönjärvi, with a basin covering 19 square kilometres (7.3 sq mi) of land.

While there were plans to build a treatment plant in Lutakko during the 1930s, it was never built, while the amount of wastewater kept increasing as the city grew.

A significant polluter was the Kangas paper mill, from where as much as 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) of sulfuric acid may have entered the lake via the Tourujoki during a day in the 1960s.

[10] In 1967, the city of Jyväskylä and Jyväskylän maalaiskunta agreed to build a shared wastewater treatment plant, which was eventually built in 1974.