Wiluna has from 200 to 600 Aboriginal people living within its community, depending upon the nature, time and place of the traditional law ceremonies across the Central Desert region.

The traditional Aboriginal owners (a grouping known as the Martu) were "settled" as a consequence of the British colonisation process that began in the 1800s.

Before and after the atomic nuclear testing near Maralinga in South Australia in the 1950s, many Aboriginal people from at least three different tribal and language groups were forced to live within the mission site.

The town also has a general store, petrol, caravan park, sports oval, public swimming pool, school, and health clinic.

The region has snakes, kangaroos, bungarras (large lizard/goanna), bush turkeys, donkeys, horses, camels and dingoes.

[4] Parts of the unsealed and flood-prone road between Wiluna and Meekatharra are as of July 2020[update] being sealed, as part of a pilot program in which the Government of Western Australia provided A$1 million for road work contractors in collaboration with the Martu-ku Yiwarra Training Centre.

Yeleeri site, located 100 km (62 mi) south has uranium ore, and the region boasts much mineral wealth.

The Paroo Station lead carbonate open pit mine is located 30 km (19 mi) west of Wiluna.

[9] Wiluna and the Mid-West region are the site of Western Australia's most advanced uranium mining projects.

In October 1960, two station workers named Fred Vincenti and Frank Quadrio were opening a fence gate on the Millbillillie-Jundee track 11 km (6.8 mi) from Wiluna when they witnessed a bright fireball falling into spinifex (Triodia) grassland to the north.

Wiluna was the furthest away from Perth that the narrow gauge Western Australian Government Railways system reached.

This story is recounted as Peasley, organising the expedition, although it was Stan Gratte of Geraldton (OAM) who organised this party to recover them when urged by Warri's brother Moodjeren, who was concerned, due to old age and the lack of young people who would normally assist the elderly, they would not survive the extended drought which was now gripping Central Australia.

Emaciated and likely close to death, the couple were brought to Wiluna where they were forgiven by their people for breaking the Mandildjara marriage laws decades before.