The road connecting the two townships (nowadays a section of the Cobb Highway) crosses a flat expanse of country known as the One Tree Plain.

"The bye-word 'Hay, Hell, and Booligal,' suggests Milton's 'lower depth' and miseries unspeakable" the correspondent wrote; "surely the disadvantages of our position are sufficiently numerous and irksome, without the exasperating addition of seeing them published far and wide with scarcely a word on the other side in favor of our much abused village".

[2]  Paterson's poem compares Booligal unfavourably with the nearby town of Hay, and even Hell itself, recounting a litany of problems with the township — heat, sand, dust, flies, rabbits, mosquitos, snakes and drought — with humorous intent.

With bated breathWe prayed that both in life and deathOur fate in other lines might fall:"Oh, send us to our just rewardIn Hay or Hell, but, gracious Lord,Deliver us from Booligal!

In 1943 the Hay newspaper, the Riverine Grazier, included the following: "we think we are right in saying that Banjo only paid Booligal one visit, and that was years after he wrote his familiar lines".

The article began with these comments: In May 1936 the newly-built Booligal War Memorial Hall was opened with a fund-raising ball attended by local and district residents.

The poet had remarked, "I suppose Booligal has grown into a fine big town now", to which Sheaffe wryly replied, "No, it never recovered from the blow you dealt to it in its youth".

In February 1897 a correspondent to The Bulletin, in canvassing possible sites for a Federal capital, discussed the “mean summer temperature” of Bourke and included the aside: “(How much cooler than Hay, Hell, and Booligal is not stated)”.

[18] In May 1897, a year after the publication of the poem and with the Riverina once again experiencing drought conditions, a report in The Age in Melbourne included the following sentence: The phrase is generally used as a signifier for a place of extreme heat and discomfort.

The following is an example from 2013: The author and folklorist Bill Wannan titled his collection of Australian bush humour Hay, Hell and Booligal (first published in 1961).