British colonisation began in October 1824 when surveyor Henry Dangar mapped the region for the colonial Government of New South Wales.

At the headwaters of the brook, Dangar's group had a three-hour battle with another party of 150 Aborigines and were forced to retreat when one of them was speared in the head.

In 1831 explorer, Sir Thomas Mitchell, found the Dart Brook clan of Geawegal people had been pushed out of their country and were suffering from smallpox in exile upon the Liverpool Plains.

[6][7] The pastoral estates along Dartbrook were not further subdivided to any great degree until after World War I, when soldier settlement schemes saw the land parcelled off into smaller acreages.

The Dartbrook coal mine opened in July 1995 with a balloon loop rail connection to the Main Northern railway line but closed in 2006.