[1] Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s when a number of pastoral runs were established.

Birdsville is reputed to have sprung up around a rough depot constructed by general merchant Matthew Flynn in the late 1870s at the site of the present town.

By 1889 the population of Birdsville was 110, and the town had 2 general stores, 3 hotels, a police station, school, 2 blacksmith shops, 2 bakers, a cordial manufacturer, bootmaker, saddler, auctioneer & commission agent, and a number of residences.

Distance and the lack of good access roads or a railway created prohibitively high transportation costs, so imported building materials were kept to a minimum.

Architecturally, the old stone buildings of Birdsville reflect the associations of the town with the entire central "strip" of the Australian continent.

The origin of the style is unknown, but the architectural characteristics are immediately identifiable: built of locally quarried stone with wide verandahs, they efficiently control the extremes of temperature in the hot arid interior of the continent.

Mrs Alice Maude Scott was the licensee and later owner from c. 1908 until at least 1920, when title passed to Harry Afford, station manager of Birdsville.

[1] From 1923 to 1937, the Royal Hotel buildings were leased by the Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission (AIM) as their first bush nursing home, or hostel.

Dr John Flynn, who was working toward establishing a flying doctor and air ambulance service for remote central Australia.

Such a service could only operate efficiently if it could be contacted quickly, so Flynn experimented with radio as a means of communicating between isolated station properties, the Mission's string of bush hostels (ultimately 13), and the flying doctor/air ambulance.

Importantly, Birdsville became reliably connected to the station properties in the Diamantina district, and with the new Aerial Medical Service, established by Flynn in 1928 under the auspices of the AIM, and based at Cloncurry.

It proved highly popular, and although indecorously dubbed the "Galah Session", is credited with being Australia's first radio talk-back program.

[1] The site occupies an area of approximately 0.2 hectares and is located on the southeast corner of Adelaide and Frew Streets in Birdsville.

The former Royal Hotel at Birdsville, erected c. 1883, survives as an important link with the earliest pastoral settlement in the Diamantina district of far western Queensland.

As the Australian Inland Mission's Nursing Home from 1923 to 1937, it has national significance as the first in a string of such bush hospitals in central Australia and is associated with the earliest outback radio communication and the provision of the Flying Doctor Service.

It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century, efficiently controlling the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent, and compensating for the lack of locally-available timber.