It was once a copper mining town, booming in 1918, when Pugh's Almanac Queensland Directory estimated Mount Cuthbert's population at 750.
Mount Cuthbert's population quickly declined mainly due to the global collapse of the copper market.
With roads and developing mining techniques, the copper of Mount Cuthbert found renewed interest in 2009.
State Parliament approved a 68 kilometre branch railway from Cloncurry to Koolamarra in late 1911.
En route it passed through Kajabbi (apparently derived from an Aboriginal word indicating a kite hawk) and Oona (formerly named "Kalkadoon".
Beef cattle were railed from Kajabbi and Koolamarra to Cloncurry but, as road transport gradually took over, that service ceased in the late 1980s.