It was once a station on the original train route north known as the Great Northern Railway that was planned to reach Darwin, but only ever made it to Alice Springs.

80 km to the north is Marree, a small town that is at the junction of the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks.

[citation needed] Lyndhurst was gazetted as a town in 1896, and initially served as a freight centre for the railways that were connected in 1882.

Mount Lyndhurst, 30 kilometres (19 mi) east, was named after the British Lord Chancellor by the government surveyor Samuel Perry.

In the 1860s, Thomas Elder took up vast areas in the northern Flinders Ranges region and called the property Mount Lyndhurst.