The explorer Charles Sturt visited the region from 1844–1846, was the first European to see
the desert. In 1880 Augustus Poeppel, a surveyor with the South Australian Survey Department determined the border between Queensland and South Australia to the west of
Haddon Corner and in doing so marked the corner point where the States of Queensland and South Australia meet the Northern Territory.
After he returned to
Adelaide, it was discovered that the links in his surveyor's chain had stretched. Poeppel’s border post was too far west by 300 metres.
In 1884, surveyor Larry Wells moved the post to its proper position on the eastern bank of
Lake Poeppel. The tri-state border is now known as
Poeppel Corner. In January 1886 surveyor David Lindsay ventured into
the desert from the western edge, in the process discovering and documenting, with the help of a Wangkangurru Aboriginal man, nine native wells and travelling as far east as the Queensland/Northern Territory border. In 1936 Ted Colson became the first non-indigenous person to cross
the desert in its entirety, riding camels.
The name
Simpson Desert was coined by Cecil Madigan after Alfred Allen Simpson, an Australian industrialist, philanthropist, geographer, and president of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. Mr Simpson was the owner of the Simpson washing machine company.