Most of the lakeshore is occupied by Tygart Lake State Park and Pleasant Creek Wildlife Management Area.

[3] Tygart Dam and Lake were authorized by the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1935; they represented the first of 16 flood control projects in the Pittsburgh District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

[4] The Dam was designed in part by architect Paul Philippe Cret and built between 1934 and '38, as a project sponsored by the Public Works Administration to provide for flood control.

[3] Small communities — such as Yates, Cecil, Sandy, Cove Run, and Stone House — were partially or fully evacuated at the time of the dam construction.

It has the capability to store the equivalent run-off of 4.56 inches of precipitation from the Lake's 1,184 square mile drainage area.