Linda was once a bustling town with a railway station, a school, two public halls, 20 shops and thriving businesses, as well as various sporting teams and activities such as athletics meets and chopping competitions which would attract crowds of several thousands to the area. Six boarding houses and four hotels bear testament to the prosperous times the town experienced at the height of the Mt Lyell mining boom.

A small cemetery commemorates the Mt Lyell Mining disaster of 1912, when a fire spread unchecked through the mine shafts at the site. Due to the absence of an emergency warning system, and the mistaken belief that the fire would eventually die out and not catch the heavy support timbers, 42 men lost their lives in the terrible disaster which shocked the whole region.

The last man was rescued 109 hours after first being trapped, which highlights the whole terrible scale of the disaster. The 42 men were buried in Queenstown cemetery, and the mine was sealed and flooded.

Today Linda is a ghost town with the last hotel, the Royal Hotel, closing in 1952. King O'Malley was once reported as saying:

"If I had two properties, and one was Linda and one was Hell and I decided to live in one, it wouldn't be Linda."

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