Monuments to acknowledge the feats of Captain Charles Sturt, Burke and Wills, Cecil Madigan and others are located throughout the town.

The earliest section is likely to have been constructed in 1883 (possibly from stone quarried at a site about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the town), as the first licence for this hotel was issued to William Blair in that year.

[1] In 1979, a sale was concluded with Australian adventurer Dick Smith but failed when the hotel burned down the day after contracts were signed.

[6] In 1980, David Brook, a descendant of the Gaffney family, and his friend Kim Fort purchased the hotel and held it for 40 years until selling to its current owners Courtney and Talia Ellis, co-founders of Outback Spirit Tours.

Internally, no original finishes appear to exist as the floors have been laid in slate, walls plastered and painted, and ceilings altered.

The hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron and is concealed by a low masonry parapet raised at the corner to carry the words "Birdsville Hotel" and "Established 1884".

The Birdsville Hotel, erected c. 1884, survives as an important link with the earliest establishment of pastoral settlement in the Diamantina district of far western Queensland.

The place is rare as one of only three surviving masonry buildings in Birdsville, the others being the c. 1883 former Royal Hotel and the 1888–90 police station and courthouse.

The Birdsville Hotel is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century, efficiently controlling the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent, and compensating for the lack of locally-available timber.

The Birdsville Hotel has social value as an outback cultural icon of national significance, a place that has become part of central Australian legend.