Yeppoon's first settlers, the Ross family, arrived in 1865.

The town reserve, which became known as Bald Hills and later Yeppoon, was surveyed in 1867. The town reserve was proclaimed in April 1868. Though intended as a coastal resort town for Rockhampton, 40 kilometres west, Yeppoon initially developed as an agricultural area.

In the late 1870s a road from Rockhampton to Yeppoon was constructed and the town grew in the 1880s, receiving mail coach services from 1883 and gaining a provisional school in 1885. The first state school at Yeppoon opened in 1889 in a building which remains today.

The railway reached Yeppoon in 1910, promoting the town's growth as a coastal resort destination.

Following WWI most Queensland towns erected war memorials. Yeppoon's public commemoration of its soldiers included renaming 'The Esplanade' as 'Anzac Parade'. This was one of three streets along which avenues of trees, symbolic of continuing life, were planted in 1921. Trees and missing plaques on James Street were replaced in 1984. The memorial Obelisk was erected in Beaman Park in 1952.

Yeppoon is today a coastal resort town on the Capricorn Coast. It is also the Livingstone Shire's main centre.