It was built to service the colony's prisoner camp, and to transport bluestone mined by convicts to building projects in downtown Adelaide.
The station and single line were opened in 1857 to carry prisoner-mined stone from the quarries behind Yatala Labour Prison (itself originally known as "The Stockade").
It was originally planned to extend the line eastward beyond the Stockade to Modbury, passing through the suburb of Valley View, though this never came to fruition.
Further, with the rise of automobile ownership, the South Australian Railways realised that passenger service on the line was uneconomic as patron numbers were low.
In July 1961, Stockade was closed, the turntable removed, and the line cut back to the nearby Northfield railway station, which was itself relocated at this time from the eastern to the western side of Briens Road.