Hamilton Hume and William Hovell were the first Europeans to explore the area in 1824, en route to Port Phillip.

[4] The gold deposits were quickly exhausted, but farmers found the area better suited to a variety of crops, so the mining supply point was moved and the current township established around 1855.

[5] Fruit trees and timber quickly became the main sources of income for the town, and in 1910 the townsite was gazetted.

[6] Many Land Army Girls were stationed in and around Batlow during the Second World War and a sizeable collection of memorabilia is held at the Historical Society Museum.

The nearest city is Wagga, whilst three towns: Tumut in the northeast; Adelong in the northwest; and Tumbarumba in the southwest, are within 40 kilometres (25 mi).

The cold, often snowy winters, combined with the higher rainfall and good soils, make an excellent apple-growing climate.

However, in 2006, Batlow experienced the most severe downturn in rainfall in New South Wales, receiving only 392 millimetres (15.4 in) of rain that year.

[11] The Bago Plateau, to the south of Batlow, has a considerably cooler and wetter climate owing to its great elevation and exposure.

Snow is frequent from June to September, with heavy falls that can last for more than a week at a time in shaded areas, and can even occur in the late spring to early summer period on rare occasions.

The steel frame of the WWII Lend Lease–constructed building used in the production of food for the allied troops was a landmark for many years until it was largely destroyed in the January 2020 bushfire.

The 43,000-hectare (110,000-acre) Bago State Forest between Batlow and Tumbarumba contains stands of alpine ash and radiata pine.

Carved by Fred Alwahan from the trunk of a red oak on Mayday Road, Batlow, NSW in 1994,[15] it stands over two metres tall.