 The area was serviced by a siding known simply as "Terre Siding" after one of the local properties.This was altered when the town was gazetted in February 1918, and named Lock after Sergeant Albert Earnest Lock, a member of the South Australian Survey Department who had been killed in Belgium during World War I, in 1917.The potential for wheat cropping was realised with the establishment of the railway, but the low rainfall kept any developments from happening until the pipeline from the Tod Reservoir was connected.