The locality was originally called Hopetown after early settler Captain Louis Hope. In 1841, brothers Evan and Colin Mackenzie, from the town of Kilcoy in Scotland, took up land west of Durundur (in the Stanley River valley) and began grazing sheep soon after land was opened to free settlement. They renamed it after their home town. They sold the property to Charles A. Atherton in 1849. Atherton in turn sold it to Captain Hope and John Ramsay in 1854. The partnership broke up ten years later, and Hope became sole owner and built the Kilcoy Station homestead of bricks, made on the property, and red cedar. He stayed on in Kilcoy until 1900. Station managers for Captain Hope were Bryant about 1860, Captain Talbot, 1864 and William Butler from 1871 until the sale, where he purchased the homestead block. Hopetoun Post Office opened on 1 December 1892 (a Kilcoy receiving office had been open from 1889) and was renamed Kilcoy in 1907.