It was renamed the Harry S. Truman Dam and Reservoir, in honor of the former president from Missouri, by Congress in 1970.

Completing the Truman Project took many years of planning, land acquisition, constructing new bridges and demolishing old ones.

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, however, did relocate its main line between La Due and Clinton; the project included five miles of new track and a causeway/bridge combination over the lake.

Harry S Truman State Park is located in Benton County, Missouri on a peninsula that juts out into the reservoir.

The south-west portion of the lake makes up part of the circumference of the Weaubleau-Osceola structure, a 330-335 million year old impact crater.