[5] The first documented British exploration of the area was the expedition led by New South Wales Surveyor-General Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1846.

Hall and Fleming faced considerable resistance from the local Mandandanji to their occupation of the land, and had to maintain a force of twelve armed men against the "native blacks".

[7][6][page needed] The local Commissioner of Crown Lands, John Henry Durbin, established a hut at Yamboucal in 1849 and within a month, he was under siege from the Mandandanji.

Mitchell dispersed the local Aborigines in a show of force, allowing the first of Surat's houses to be built.

[6][page needed][8] Due to patrols of the Native Police, local Aboriginal resistance had ceased by 1852.

Thomas Davis, the father of Steele Rudd the writer, lived in Surat in the early 1850s and recalled the fearful and unjustified slaughter of Aboriginal people resulting from these patrols, even though he actively participated in some of them.

[9] One of the last mass-killings in the vicinity occurred a kilometre downstream from Surat in May 1852, where a massacre of peaceful Aboriginal workers on Hall's Yamboucal station was perpetrated by Native Police troopers led by local colonists.

[10] All Saints Anglican Church was built from timber by contractor Mr Williams and opened on Sunday 23 February 1879.

[31] Maranoa Regional Council operates a public library at 62 Burrowes Street, within the Cobb & Co. Changing Station complex.

[33] The complex also has a Cobb & Co changing station, freshwater aquarium, social history museum, theatre and shire hall and the Balonne gallery.