The surveyor Arthur Dewhurst mapped the town, naming three streets after British Prime Ministers: Fox (main street—Castlereagh Highway), Pitt and Peel.

[6] Walgett was a port in the late 19th century for paddle steamers that plied the Murray-Darling river system.

[7] The Freedom Riders, consisting in the main of Sydney university students, including Charles Perkins, arrived in Walgett on 15 February 1965.

[citation needed] After their protests the Freedom Riders left town and headed for Narrabri, when a short distance from Walgett their bus was allegedly forced off the road by a car driven by a local farmer.

This event led to Walgett, the Freedom Riders and the plight of Indigenous Australians receiving national and international media attention.

In December 2018 amidst drought, the Barwon River at Walgett ceased flowing, reduced to a series of stagnant pools.

[16] The suspected murder of 31-year-old mother-of-two Roxlyn Margaret Bowie occurred in June 1982 when she vanished from her Walgett family home.

[19][20] On the night of 9 December 1994, nurse Sandra Hoare was abducted from the Peg Cross Ward of the Walgett District Hospital by Vester and Brendan Fernando, and forced to walk to a nearby sporting field where she was raped by both men.

She was then forced to walk further to the perimeter of the nearby Walgett aerodrome where she was murdered by Vester Fernando using a machete to sever her neck in a near-decapitation.

Brendan was later stabbed and killed by Vester in Lithgow Correctional Centre in an apparent revenge attack for giving evidence against him prior to and during their trials.

It is the gateway to the New South Wales opal fields at Lightning Ridge to the north and The Grawin to the west.

The local competition consists of teams from Walgett, Cumborah, Lightning Ridge, Collarenebri and Goodooga.

The club's first two aircraft purchased in its first years were DH-82 Tiger Moths – registrations VH-BAR and VH-WON carrying the name of the nearby Barwon River.

In 2008 the club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, and continues to be a prosperous part of the transport and aviation hub of the far north of the state.

The college is a unique educational institution, and gave birth to the successful Yaama Maliyaa group that won several national awards in Young Achievers Australia in 2005.

In Been There Before Paterson relates the story of a visitor to the town who is down on his luck and who makes a wager that he can throw a stone from one bank of the river to another.