Downtown Saukville was the site of a Native American village at the crossroads of two trails before white settlers arrived in the mid-1840s. In its early years, the community was a stagecoach stop on the road from Milwaukee to Green Bay and also grew as a mill and market town serving the dairy farmers of northwestern Ozaukee County. The village incorporated in 1915 and later in the 20th Century grew into a suburban community with a manufacturing-based economy. As of 2019, more than 40% of the village's jobs were in manufacturing, with the largest employers being a steel mill as well as several foundries and metal fabricators.