Timbercutters came to the area to harvest the River Red gum, stringybark and messmate trees, which were transported by bullock teams to nearby sawmills.

The clearing of the native forest and relatively high rainfall gave rise to a thriving dairy industry, which persists today.

[2] At its peak in the late nineteenth Century, Panmure consisted of a police station and courthouse, two sawmills, a blacksmith, a butcher, three churches, a pub, two stores, a bakery, and a school.

The town hit international headlines, in 1883, when a ten-year-old girl, Margaret Nolan, was brutally murdered and sexually assaulted by a man called Henry Morgan.

Adjacent to the swimming hole in the Recreation Reserve is a natural spring that is of cultural significance to the local Indigenous community.