Badplaas was a major stopover on the wagon route to the Lowveld where Boer farmers had settled. These people used the Badplaas grassland for summer grazing, which gave their cattle respite from the summer heat and disease of the coastal plain. When gold was discovered in Barberton, Badplaas flourished as a major stopover and supply point on the wagon route to and from, the Highveld. The region saw action during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, when General French passed, through here on his way to Barberton, where a Boer commando was active.

Badplaas is famous for the hot sulphur spring which bubbles out of the ground at a rate of 30 000 litres an hour, and which used to be known to the local tribespeople as Emanzana -"the healing waters". The backdrop to Badplaas is a range of hills called Ndumudlumu ("place of much thunder") by the Swazis.