Balgo lies on the north-eastern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, 300 kilometres south of the nearest town of Halls Creek.
Balgo was established in 1939 by Catholic Pallotine priests, Father Ernest Worms and Father Francis. It served as a protected zone for Walmajarri and Wangkajunga people who had drifted into pastoral stations to the immediate north and for Aboriginal peoples from the Great Sandy Desert and further south.
During the Second World War the Australian Army established ammunition dumps in the Great Sandy Desert, which probably pushed Kukatja and Ngardi people out of their territory and north into Balgo.
For Kukatja and Ngardi peoples, both born and raised in the bush, the missionaries were the first kartiya (non-Aboriginal people) they encountered. These Kukatja and Ngardi stayed on to become the backbone of the small community.
A poor water supply led to the old Balgo mission being relocated in 1962 to Balgo Hills (Wirrimanu), 14 kilometres to the east. This new site was associated with the ancestral kingfisher.
As facilities improved, Warlpiri and Pintupi people from Yuendumu, Lajamanu and Papunya moved westwards to the mission, which by the mid-1970s had an Indigenous population of around 1000. By the early 1980s, about half of that number had moved out to outstations.
Seven different peoples, all speaking dialects of Western Desert language, whose countries lie around Balgo, now live in the community and its outstations.
