However, during a period of higher precipitation from 1880 to 1915 the salinity of the lake dropped because of additional runoff from local creeks.

In 1917, Levi Leiter a Chicago millionaire built an irrigation ditch from Piney Creek to Lake Desmet, and impounded additional water with a small dam.

On the day following we crossed a chain of lofty mountains to attain the Lower Piney Fork, nearly twenty miles distant.

We arrived quite unexpectedly on the borders of a lovely little lake about six miles long, and my traveling companions gave it my name.

"[6] In 1865, the Powder River Expedition passed Lake Desmet during their military operations against the Sioux Indians.