Located 65 kilometres (40 mi) north of Melbourne, it is the oldest inland town in Victoria by the combination of age and physical occupation, and because it had unique agricultural attributes to drive that earliest settlement.

Its spectacular growth continued to match that of the major gold mining towns of Ballarat, Bendigo and Beechworth until at least 1861.

[7] Kilmore was discovered for European use by the famous Overlander and explorer of the Port Phillip District (later Victoria) and South Australia Charles Bonney on about 21 March 1837, at which time he also blazed the track of the Sydney Road to Melbourne.

[8] Bonney's sheep station was unique because the Kilmore Plains on which it was established were permanently watered by three spring-fed creeks and were highly fertile.

After Bonney left, the station was held successively by Dr Richard Julian Hamlyn, then the partners Frederick Armand Powlett and John Green.

[11] The Kilmore Plains had such a concentration of population that in the first Victorian election of 1851 the district controlled two seats.

As a further demonstration of the importance of the district, the first elected representative of the United Counties was John Pascoe Fawkner, the co-founder of Melbourne.

[12] Between 1856 and 1865 the seat of Kilmore was the electorate of the Irish-born John O'Shanassy (1818–83) who had three stints as Premier of Victoria between 1857 and 1863.Victoria Premiers O'Shanassy, an Irish Catholic, was the bane of the Protestant establishment in Melbourne and the ensuing sectarianism also affected those who lived in Kilmore.

[16] Many of Kilmore's oldest extant buildings are made of bluestone including the hospital, old court house, former post office, some churches, a gaol, and a monument to Hume and Hovell near the golf course.