The government chose to retain control over portions of Waterfall Gully until 1884, when they agreed to place the land under the auspices of the City of Burnside.

28 years later the government took back the management of the southern part of Waterfall Gully, designating it as South Australia's first National Pleasure Resort.

Over the years Waterfall Gully has been extensively logged, and early agricultural interests saw the cultivation of a variety of introduced species as crops, along with the development of local market gardens and nurseries.

Attempts to mine the area were largely unsuccessful, but the region housed one of the state's earliest water-powered mills, and a weir erected in the early 1880s provided for part of the City of Burnside's water supply.

[4] Nevertheless, the gully had seen human visitors long before the arrival of the Europeans, as the native population had lived in the area for up to 40,000 years prior to Flinders' appearance off the South Australian coast.

[5] In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Waterfall Gully and the surrounding Mount Lofty Ranges are part of the story of the ancestor-creator Nganno.

[6] Travelling across the land of the native Kaurna people, Nganno was wounded in a battle and laid down to die, forming the Mount Lofty Ranges.

[8] The name of the Greater Mount Lofty Parklands, Yurrebilla, was derived from this term,[7] while the nearby town of Uraidla employs a more corrupted form.

The bark from the local stringybark trees (Eucalyptus obliqua)[8] was used in the construction of winter huts, and stones and native timbers were used to form tools.

In making their ascent the party skirted a ravine—described by Mr Kent as possessing "smooth and grassy sides"—which is believed by Anne Hardy to have been Waterfall Gully.

[4] Subsequent to Barker's ascent, the first settlers who were recorded as having climbed Mount Lofty were Bingham Hutchinson and his servant, William Burt.

Near the point of surrender, Hutchinson described how they were "agreeably surprised by seeing a wall of rock about fifty or sixty feet [fifteen to eighteen metres] high, which stretched across the ravine, and from the top of it leapt the brook which had so long been [their] companion".

Section 920, as it was designated, did not enter into private hands, and thus members of the public were able to access the area from the nearby suburb of Eagle on the Hill on Mount Barker road.

[25] As a side effect, the weir also reduced the volume of water available to the local market gardeners, and over many years that aspect of the region disappeared.

Nevertheless, many visitors chose this route, and a combination of public demand and a desire from some of the landowners for improved access to and from their properties—especially from the Mügge family—led to pressure to build a road through the gully.

[29] To provide for tourists, the area gained a number of road-side kiosks and produce stalls, and the Mügge family erected the two-storey Waterfall Hotel along the path.

[32] The land remained under the Burnside Council's control until 1915, when the Waterfall Gully Reserve was reclaimed by the government as the first National Pleasure Resort in the state.

Most of this land was combined in 1963 to create the park that extends eastwards up the gully to the summit of Mount Lofty and northwards to Greenhill Road.

Burnside council workers, the Country Fire Service (CFS) and the SES repaired the initial damage on the night while reconstruction of infrastructure commenced in late November.

However, not all of the native wildlife has been lost—bats (in particular, Gould's wattled bat), can be found in the area, as can superb fairy-wrens and Adelaide rosellas, and a large number of unique Australian animals such as kangaroos, koalas and possums can be spotted on some of the walking trails.

The accident also led to a safety audit being conducted by TransportSA, and although the results were not released to the public at the time, it called for an investigation of the entire length of the road.

Further, 44.7% of Waterfall Gully residents aged 15 years and over reported a bachelor's degree or higher as their highest level of educational attainment, near double that recorded for all of South Australia (22.7%).

[50] The Waterfall Gully Restaurant was constructed between 1911 and 1912 by South Australian architects Albert Selmar Conrad and his brother Frank,[51] and was formally opened by Sir Day Bosanquet on 9 November 1912.

[49] Built in the style of a Swiss chalet, the building has been heritage listed since 1987,[52] and is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a firefighter who died from burns suffered in 1926.

[57] The results shown are from the closest polling station to Waterfall Gully—which is located outside of the suburb—at St David's Church Hall on nearby Glynburn Road (Burnside).

[58] In local government, Waterfall Gully is part of the ward of Beaumont within the City of Burnside, and the current Mayor for the district is David Parkin.