Prior to European settlement, the land was solely in the custody of the Nukunu people. Europeans first visited the area on 10 and 11 March 1802 when a group of people from led by the Scottish botanist, Robert Brown, climbed Mount Brown. From the 1870s, the land was used for forestry with the focus being on nursery activity to produce trees for planting in drier parts of South Australia and other Australian states. After 1900, the nursery role of the forest ceased and the land was leased for pastoral use, a practice which continued until the 1990s. Part of the land was declared as a forest reserve possibly in 1925. In 1990, the forest reserve status was withdrawn as part of a rationalisation of land holdings by the responsible South Australian government agency, the Department of Woods and Forests.