Prior to European settlement, the area near Mount Noorat was a traditional meeting site where Indigenous tribes - the Kirrae Wuurong people - held ceremonies, bartered goods and settled disputes. There are conflicting reports about the number of Indigenous people living in the district at the time of white settlement, but in 1841, the population of the Mount Noorat clan numbered only four people. An outbreak of smallpox during the 1830s was one cause of the population decline and it has been suggested that an alleged massacre of Indigenous people by white settlers was another.