The small Ecker river in the west, a tributary of the Oker, forms the border with the town of Bad Harzburg in Lower Saxony.

Stapelburg Castle was first mentioned in a 1306 deed as a property of the Counts of Wernigerode; it was meant to protect and control the trade route to the Imperial City of Goslar near the border with the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

Prior to that an Imperial castle, mentioned as Ahlsburg in the 14th century, was erected a few kilometres south-southwest in the Harz mountains on a spur high above the Ecker valley.

The settlement emerged in the second half of the 16th century from the outlying estate (Vorwerk) of Bilenshausen or Bilashausen, that had been established by the former Halberstadt councillor Heinrich von Bila (1535–1584) at the foot of medieval castle.

The meadows in the Ecker valley south of the village were the site of the Jungborn destination spa, founded in 1896 by Adolf Just, which hosted notable guests like Franz Kafka in July 1912.