Scales Mound is a village in Jo Daviess County,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

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. The population was 436 at the 2020 census.

History

The original town of Scales Mound was located at the base of an erosional remnant similar to Charles Mound, about a mile southwest of the present-day village. 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. Little is known about Dunning or the use of the land until the 1850s.Mansberger, Floyd.
Scales Mound Historic District
, (

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), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, May 2, 1990, ''

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of ...

'', accessed May 17, 2008. In 1851 the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...

(ICRR) was established and it would become a major factor in the settlement of much of rural Illinois, including Scales Mound. In September 1853, anticipating the arrival of the railroad, the village of Scales Mound was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted by Josiah Conlee and B.B. Provost. During the summer of 1854 track crews from ICRR laid out of track between Scales Mound and Apple River and trains were running the line the day after completion. 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.

Demographics

As of the 2020 census there were 436 people, 209 households, and 148 families residing in the village. The population density was . There were 189 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 94.27%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.46%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 1.83% Native American, 0.00% Asian, 0.00%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 0.46% from other races, and 2.98% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 2.52% of the population. There were 209 households, out of which 36.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.46% were married couples living together, 5.74% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.19% were non-families. 19.14% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.05% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.81 and the average family size was 2.40. The village's age distribution consisted of 26.1% under the age of 18, 7.0% from 18 to 24, 24% from 25 to 44, 21.4% from 45 to 64, and 21.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 111.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.3 males. The median income for a household in the village was $57,292, and the median income for a family was $59,750. Males had a median income of $34,750 versus $30,833 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the village was $32,767. About 6.1% of families and 7.0% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 10.0% of those under age 18 and 0.9% of those age 65 or over.

Geography

Location

Scales Mound lies at the northwestern tip of Illinois in Jo Daviess County, part of the Driftless Area. Scales Mound is located near the highest point in Illinois, Charles Mound, and on the Stagecoach Trail. It has an annual festival, Stagecoach Trail days. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Scales Mound has a total area of , all land.

Topography

Scales Mound is located in a region of the U.S. Midwest known as the

Driftless Area The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country and the Paleozoic Plateau, is a topographic and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme ...

, so called because it escaped glaciation during the last ice age. It covers parts of Illinois,

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

and

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

. The Illinois section is mostly limited to Jo Daviess County and small parts of Whiteside and Carroll County in northwest Illinois. The topography of the area is characterized by hilly terrain and wooded ridges. Common features found in the Scales Mound area include

canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...

s, bluffs,

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

s and

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...

s.Suloway, Liane, Joselyn, Mark, and Brown, Patrick W.
Driftless Area
, ''Inventory of Resource Rich Areas in Illinois: An Evaluation of Ecological Resources'', Illinois Natural History Survey, 1996, Center for Wildlife Ecology, accessed May 17, 2008. Near Charles Mound, the highest point in Illinois at 1235 feet, Scales Mound is said to be "At the Top of Illinois".Galena Jo Daviess Visitors Guide, 2012

Climate

Education

Scales Mound has one K-12 school (

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

included). Its mascot is the Hornet.

Culture

* Scales Mound Historic District

References

External links

Government

Village of Scales MoundJo Daviess CountyScales Mound Fire Protection District

Others

Scales Mound School
{{authority control Villages in Jo Daviess County, Illinois Populated places established in 1853 Villages in Illinois