Wallaroo Mines is a suburb of the inland town of Kadina on the Yorke Peninsula in the Copper Coast Council area.

[5] With the arrival of British pioneers in the late 1830s and 1840s, pastoralists began grazing livestock in the vicinity but no permanent settlements were formed.

By August 1860, the new copper mines employed 150 men and were "turning out ores of a rich quality", and by the end of 1860 there was a total population of 500.

It was subsequently bought out by the South Australian government on 1 March 1878, with the steam railway from Adelaide arriving in the same year; the old horse-driven line was later pulled up.

[11][12] The mine temporarily closed from August 1878 until 1880 due to low copper prices, resulting in a large exodus from the district.

[8] In 1904, a fire in Taylor's Shaft, then the main point of operations, lasted for over a month and cost £50,000, resulting in a "modernisation program" for the mine.

[7] The mines struggled in the years after World War I due to a downturn in the price of copper, closing for long periods and losing large amounts of money between 1919 and 1922.

[20] The Elders Engine House was demolished, with its stone being used several years later, in 1936, to build the new Kadina Catholic Church.

[7] The Wallaroo Mines Primary School remains in operation on a new site to the north of the original location, and had 102 enrolled students in 2015.