The city needed the reservoir to serve as a cooling pond for the Holly Street Power Plant, which operated from 1960 until 2007.

Roberta Crenshaw, chair of the Austin Board of Parks and Recreation, purchased nearly 400 trees and shrubs in an effort to spearhead parkland development around the lake.

Johnson's involvement brought attention and money (including $19,000 of her own) to the Town Lake project, allowing for the planting of hundreds of shrubs and trees.

[10][11] In 2014, a one-mile stretch of the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail, named after a former Austin mayor and his wife, was paved to create a boardwalk.

[16] As a result, the lake serves as a popular recreational area for paddleboards, kayaks, canoes, dragon boats, and rowing shells.

Austin's warm climate and the river's calm waters, nearly 6 miles (9.7 km) length and straight courses are especially popular with crew teams and clubs.

[citation needed] The late Austin resident and blues guitar legend, Stevie Ray Vaughan played a number of concerts at Auditorium Shores and is honored with a memorial statue on the south bank.

A local nonprofit, The Trail Conservancy, is the Trail's private steward and has made Trail-wide improvements by adding user amenities and infrastructure including trailheads and lakefront gathering areas, locally-designed jewel box restrooms, exercise equipment, as well as doing trailwide ecological restoration work on an ongoing basis.

The trail encompasses the Lou Neff Point Gazebo at the confluence of Barton Creek and Lady Bird Lake.

The predominant fish species in Lady Bird Lake are largemouth bass, catfish, carp, and sunfish.

[27] Although the use of chlordane as a pesticide was banned in the United States in 1988, the chemical sticks strongly to soil particles and can continue to pollute groundwater for years after its application.