Unearthed within Mackenrodt's limits have been a few archaeological finds from Treverian (the Treveri were a people of mixed Celtic and Germanic stock, from whom the Latin name for the city of Trier, Augusta Treverorum, is also derived) and Roman times.

Beginning about AD 500, the old settlements in the area were forsaken owing to the throngs of warlike Germanic peoples who were flooding in from the east.

The whole area was throughout the Middle Ages part of the local feudal territory known as the Idarbann, both politically and ecclesiastically.

One of the first measures undertaken by these new settlers was the establishment of churches; the ones in Birkenfeld and Brombach (see Niederbrombach, Oberbrombach) were already being mentioned in documents dating from about 700.

The execution place of this region was found at the point where Mackenrodt's, Algenrodt's and Idar's limits all met each other, a spot that even today in the official cadastral nomenclature still bears the name Galgenberg – “Gallows Mountain”.

Thus, Mackenrodt passed along with the rest of the Idarbann to the “Hinder” County of Sponheim in 1766, and then in 1771 to the Margraviate of Baden, and soon thereafter to the French Republic – as of 1804 the Empire.

In 1814, the area found itself under a joint Imperial-Royal Austrian and Royal Bavarian “State Administrative Commission” (Landesverwaltungskommission) before the Congress of Vienna awarded it to the Kingdom of Prussia, who in turn ceded it in 1817 to the Principality of Birkenfeld, an exclave of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, most of whose territory was in what is now northwest Germany, with a coastline on the North Sea.

Nevertheless, agriculture and livestock raising for feeding the population remained until the end of the 19th century the more important industry.

The marked growth seen in, for instance, Göttschied, Kirschweiler or Rötsweiler-Nockenthal, where ample building development areas have attracted people from Idar-Oberstein who could not find property in their own town, simply is not replicated in Mackenrodt.

Mackenrodt's arms are unusual in that they have a “chequy” field whose tinctures begin in dexter chief with the metal rather than the colour.