The names of the fallen were not listed on the memorial, but on an honour board in the Civic Centre and relocated in 2019 to the Cunnamulla library.

[2] By 1920 the Paroo Shire Council had decided to erect a war memorial fountain in the centre of Cunnamulla town.

However, it appears that the memorial was not erected immediately as in July 1924, the masonry firm of Andrew Lang Petrie, Brisbane wrote to the Paroo Shire Council offering designs.

The word "cenotaph", commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means "empty tomb".

Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war.

[2] Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.

[2] Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.

[2] Fountains were selected as memorials in other places, as water was considered symbolic of renewed life and cleansing.

A small leaded marble plaque on the north face bears the inscription:[2]Erected by the citizens of Paroo Shire in memory of those gallant Australians who fell in the Great War 1914 - 1918.The centrepiece comprises four basins, decreasing in scale as they reach the peak.

[2] The entire shaft, which tapers towards the peak, is heavily ornamented with a variety of design elements, including scrollwork, panels and foliated patterns.

[2] Cunnamulla War Memorial Fountain was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.

War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state.

War memorial fountains of this scale are uncommon in Queensland, however water is a popular symbolic element suggesting renewed life and cleansing.