Huge ore deposits were discovered in Silverton, which in 1884 prompted the government of South Australia to offer to the Government of New South Wales the building of a narrow gauge railway line from the limit of its jurisdiction at the border to Silverton, since horse-drawn drays over rough tracks could not meet the transport task for the journey to Port Pirie.

The town of Cockburn came into existence in 1886 on the South Australia side of the border as a place for trains to exchange locomotives and crews.

Broken Hill mining unionists were locked out of the company gates for rejecting pay cuts which would have been below the minimum wage.

[5] The standard gauge railway line, officially opened in 1970, runs south of the surveyed town limits of Cockburn and has a new station and a passing loop.

[6] Nothing remains of the infrastructure of the railway yard other than an elevated locomotive water tank, repurposed as a bushfire emergency asset.

Cockburn is located within the federal division of Grey, the state electoral district of Stuart and the Pastoral Unincorporated Area of South Australia.