 Wairuna Homestead, like all early pastoral properties, developed as a self-contained village with workers living on site in barracks and with buildings for self-sufficiency functions such as blacksmithing and butchering.Station employees included Aboriginal people as they were an important part of the functioning of pastoral properties in northern Queensland from the 1870s.Aboriginal people employed at Wairuna resided in barracks or lived with their families in a camp sited to the south-east of the homestead.