Bald Eagle State Park, as well as the Bald Eagle mountains and valley and the Bald Eagle Creek were named after the well known Chief Bald Eagle of the Lenni Lenape nation. Bald Eagle or Wapelanewack, as the chief was known in his native tongue, inhabited the areas near Milesburg until approximately 1720 when his nation was conquered by the Iroquois. It was some 250 years later on July 4, 1971, that Bald Eagle State Park was opened to the public.

The construction of this park was made possible by the cooperative efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. It was the Corps of Engineers who acquired the land and constructed the Foster Joseph Sayers Dam in 1969. Some basic recreational facilities were completed in 1971. At that time, by prior lease agreement, the Pennsylvania Bureau of State Parks, assumed the responsibility of operating 5,900 acres of the project land for recreational purposes.

The dam is named for Foster Joseph Sayers, from nearby Howard, PA. Sayers won two Congressional Medals of Honor during World War II.

The topography of the area surrounding the park is also an important feature of the park. The park and the Bald Eagle Valley are located in the transition area of the Allegheny Plateaus and the Valley and Ridge Provinces. The park is bordered on the south and east by the rugged and beautiful Bald Eagle Mountains. This mountain ridge is the last ridge of the Valley and Ridge Provinces to the west and north.

The park is bordered to the west and north by the beginning of the Allegheny Plateaus. These geographic features combine with and enhance the beauty of the lake to produce a strikingly scenic area. The dominant hardwood cover type of the area attracts many more visitors in the fall when the trees display their autumn splendor.