[3][clarification needed] The lake was first seen by Europeans on 12 March 1838, when encountered by the overlanding party of Joseph Hawdon and Charles Bonney, who were the first to drove livestock from New South Wales to Adelaide.

[4][5] At that time it was a fine sheet of water, but was dried out and muddy three years later in 1841 when the police expedition led by Thomas O'Halloran passed by on its way to rescue other overlanders at the Rufus River.

When Charles Sturt passed by in 1844 on his expedition into the interior of Australia, he surveyed Lake Bonney for the first time, as well as the creek connecting it to the River Murray.

The regulator was removed in December 2010 and this, with wet summer and winter rains restored it to normal levels by April 2011.

[citation needed] In 2022, two side-by-side pillar-shaped monuments were erected on the shores of the lake, in homage to Aboriginal singer-songwriters Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach.