The area is the location of a significant archeological site, the Lamoka site, which, according to the National Park Service, "provided the first clear evidence of an Archaic hunting and gathering culture in the Northeastern United States (c.3500 BC)".

The Lamoka People lived in central New York and northern Pennsylvania from about 3500 to 1300 BCE.

Archaeological excavations at the Lamoka site – which was named a National Historic Landmark in 1961[2] – revealed that they lived part of the year in small houses.

New York State Route 226 passes close by the eastern shore of the lake.

The total surface area is 824 acres (3.3 km2), bounded by about eleven miles (18 km) of shoreline.