The town is located in the Rural City of Wangaratta and the Shire of Moira local government area between Wangaratta and Yarrawonga and 277 kilometres (172 mi) north east of the state capital, Melbourne.

[3] The bushranger Daniel "Mad Dog" Morgan bailed up the occupants of Peechelba Station, the MacPhersons, on the evening of 8 April 1865.

On the pretence of attending to a crying child (supposed to be Christina Macpherson), a nursemaid, Alice Macdonald, escaped through a window and raised the alarm.

Jack Quinlan, a stockman at the station, shot and fatally wounded Morgan, who died at about 1.45 p.m. on 9 April 1865.

Locks were cut from his hair, his body was publicly displayed at Wangaratta (site left of current Court House), his beard was flayed from his face as a souvenir, and his head severed, to be forwarded to the professor of anatomy at the University of Melbourne.