was (is) called Salt Fork creek. I guess there actually was a salt deposit the Natives used to use. It may have even been preserved, I'm not sure. But there are a lot of streams throughout the area and the state dammed them all up to create the lake.

It was a very bitter (dare I use that word nowadays?) battle over the whole thing and, then, Governor Jim Rhodes was burned in effigy at the entrance opening day of the park. I know a couple people whop were tossed off their farms back then that are still po'd about it.

On a side note, that dam started leaking a couple years ago and they had to draw down the lake to fix it. It was eerie seeing all the stream beds still relatively intact and all the old roadways and foundations that had been under water for so long.