The town takes its name from James Lyon who arrived in the Glenlyon district in the 1860s.

[1] By 1876, James Lyon had built a large saw-mill in the Bullarook Forest.

He had built another one by 1881, at which most of the adult male residents in the local community were employed.

[4] The Lyonville railway station was on the Carlsruhe to Daylesford line, which opened in 1880 and closed in 1978.

[5] The Daylesford Spa Country tourist railway plans to extend its track along the former rail reserve from Bullarto east to Lyonville, and then on to Trentham.