The Schaumburg Forest used to be a border forest between the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe and Prussia; today, parts of its western edge form sections of the state border with North Rhine-Westphalia. The Schaumburger Landwehr, which in the past reached as far as the Steinhuder Meer and marked the border between Schaumburg-Lippe and Westphalia in the Middle Ages, extends over a length of around 25 km in the Schaumburg Forest. The Schaumburg Forest is the western remainder of the historic Dülwald, which once stretched from Minden to the Steinhuder Meer and was a border forest of old Saxon districts.
In the middle of the forest, on the Petershagen – Bückeburg road, there is the Baum hunting lodge and a small mausoleum; the final resting place of the Schaumburg count Wilhelm and his family.
Another mausoleum is located in the southern part of the Schaumburg Forest about one kilometer north of the connecting road Meinsen to Cammer (both to Bückeburg). It contains the coffins of the founder of Bad Eilsen, Countess Juliane von Schaumburg-Lippe (1761–1799) and her mother. Juliane had become a widow at an early age, and the grave of her secret lover, the princely chief forester Clemens August von Kaas (1760–1832), is in a very hidden place in the forest, east of Baum Castle.
The Schaumburg Forest acquired cultural and historical significance because Wilhelm Busch often painted and drew on its forest edges and on its forest meadows, because his birthplace Wiedensahl, where he often stayed later, is close to the western edge of the Schaumburg Forest.