Thiensville was the site of a Potawatomi village in the early 19th century before white settlers began arriving in the 1830s and 1840s.

Thien played a significant role in the Town of Mequon's early politics and organized the Thiensville Volunteer Fire Department.

The freethinkers were opposed to organized religion and actively prevented churches from being established in the community for the first eight decades of its history.

Thiensville grew and prospered in the late 1800s when it became a railway stop; the community became more urban with stores, mills and services for farmers in the rural Town of Mequon.

The two communities have close ties, with a shared chamber of commerce, library, fire and emergency medical services, and school district.

In the early 19th century, the Potawatomi lived on the west bank of the Milwaukee River and had a village in present-day Thiensville, located on Pigeon Creek, north of Freistadt Road.

They surrendered their land to the United States federal government through the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which was ratified in 1835 and required them to leave the area by 1838.

One of the first settlers was John Weston, who settled near present-day Thiensville in 1837 and served as the first postmaster of the Town of Mequon.

[8] Joachim Heinrich Thien moved to the area in 1842 from Oldenburg, Prussia, and helped design a plan for the settlement that would become Thiensville.

A year later he employed a group of Native American laborers to construct a dam and a canal on the Milwaukee River.

[10] Thiensville grew in part because of its location on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, which was constructed in the early 1870s.

[11][12] In 1945, eighty German prisoners of war from Camp Fredonia in Little Kohler, Wisconsin were contracted to work at the Herbert A. Nieman Canning Company in the village to make up for the loss of labor due to local men fighting in World War II.

[14] In the 20th century, Mequon and the village of Theinsville developed a close relationship,[15] with a shared school district,[16] chamber of commerce,[17] and library.

Pigeon Creek also flows through downtown Thiensville into the river, with the confluence near the old village hall at the intersection of Main Street and Green Bay Road.

The village is south of the Devonian Thiensville formation, a large limestone deposit lying mostly below the soil with the exception of an exposed rock face at the Cedarburg Road cut in northern Mequon.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources considers the eastern part of Thiensville to be in the Central Lake Michigan Coastal ecological landscape, while the western part of the village is in the Southern Lake Michigan Coastal ecological landscape.

Events include a Memorial Day parade, "Fun Before the Fourth", and a public Christmas Tree lighting.

[22] The village also hosts a farmers market in Village Park (299 Elm St.) every Tuesday from June through October, 9 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.[25] The Lions Club hosts an annual Lionfest, with a softball tournament, bingo, live entertainment, carnival rides, a chicken dinner, and a car show.

[37] Christ Alone Evangelical Lutheran Church also operates a parochial school in Thiensville for students from kindergarten through eight grade.

[38][39] The Wisconsin Central Ltd. railroad, a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway, operates a freight rail line parallel to the Ozaukee Interurban Trail in the village.

[40] Thiensville's volunteer fire department was organized in 1857 by village founder Joachim Heinrich Thien.