It was proclaimed in 1851 by Governor Henry Young and was named for the former Surveyor-General of South Australia, Edward Charles Frome.

The District Council of Davenport was established shortly after in 1888 at Stirling North, under the provisions of the District Councils Act 1887, but was renamed Woolundunga in 1893 to avoid confusion with the adjacent corporate town.

Wilmington had been renamed Hammond in 1893 but the name was restored when it absorbed much of the abolished Woolundunga in 1933.

That same year, the northerly-adjacent District Council of Kanyaka, also established in 1888, occupied a small north portion of the county when it annexed part of the former Woolundunga council area in the hundreds of Woolundunga and Willochra.

In 1980, Port Germein and Wilmington amalgamated to form the present District Council of Mount Remarkable which presently spans almost all of the county, with the exception of the industrial centre of Port Augusta which has remained continuously viable beside coast in the north west corner of the county.