The state park is located on a 150 feet (50 m) bluff overlooking the Rock River in western Illinois.

"[3] The Sauk successfully farmed the area during part of the year and spent the winters in camps down and across the Mississippi collecting fur-bearing animals.

Some of the Sauk traveled every year to British forts on far-away Lake Superior and near Detroit for trading and gift-giving.

A disputed 1804 St. Louis Treaty between Quashquame and William Henry Harrison led to the transfer of Illinois lands to the U.S. Government, including Saukenuk.

Many of Black Hawk's followers were killed and the Quad Cities region was completely opened to settlement.

However, many white Americans admired Black Hawk's courage in defense of his band's ancestral lands, and the native leader was elevated to the rank of a folk hero.

A statue of Black Hawk was raised on the site in 1892, and the Civilian Conservation Corps redeveloped and improved the park in 1934–1942.

The last couple of blocks on the southern portion of 11th street Rock Island (U.S. Route 67) now cover the former site of the Sauk village of Saukenuk, with Black Hawk State Historic Site and John Hauberg Museum of Native American Life slightly to the east.

The museum is located in a lodge constructed in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps and was named after John Hauberg, a philanthropist from Rock Island.

Exhibits include full-size replicas of Sauk winter and summer houses, dioramas depicting Native life typical of the period from 1750 to 1830, trade goods, jewelry and domestic items, and several Black Hawk artifacts, including his tomahawk, two of his clay tobacco pipes, and a bronze bust fashioned from a plaster life mask.