Wycheproof - Culture and History

The town's name allegedly derives from the Aboriginal place-name 'witchi-poorp', said to mean 'grass on a hill', a reference to Mt Wycheproof just east of the highway. The first station in the district was established in 1846. There was but one settler here at the start of 1874 but a subdivision that year created a population of 130. The town was surveyed in 1875 and the railway arrived in 1883.

The grandfather of the distinguished Sir Douglas Nicholls, the first knighted Aborigine and Governor of South Australia, lived here in the 1880s.