In 1830 Samuel Scales purchased the original village site from John Sole and built a tavern at the base of the mound along Sucker Trail, a major east-west corridor.

The land that the present-day village of Scales Mound is on was purchased from the U.S. government in 1848 by a man named Dunning.

In September 1853, anticipating the arrival of the railroad, the village of Scales Mound was platted by Josiah Conlee and B.B.

With the arrival of the railroad, Scales Mound's first building was constructed in the late fall of 1854, a store built by Sherman Eddy.

Scales Mound lies at the northwestern tip of Illinois in Jo Daviess County, part of the Driftless Area.

[7] Scales Mound is located in a region of the U.S. Midwest known as the Driftless Area, so called because it escaped glaciation during the last ice age.

Common features found in the Scales Mound area include canyons, bluffs, ravines and palisades.