 The lake itself was named for the Big Poe Creek which feeds the reservoir.Access to the reservoir and the reservoir's dam were both constructed by the CCC in the mid to late 1930s, specifically with the dam being completed in 1937.Nittany Mountain is part of a synclinal depression of the anticlinal Nittany Arch, which originally formed a huge mountain, that has since eroded, during the Appalachian orogeny.