[6] Hokah is located near the confluence of the Root and Mississippi rivers, opposite La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the area that is now the city of Hokah was a Native American settlement of the Dakota people.

[10] The first recorded European settler in Hokah was Edward Thompson, who arrived in 1851 with his wife and family and constructed a flour mill and dam on Thompson Creek, a tributary of the Root River that runs through the city and now bears his name.

[9] By 1875, Hokah had several major industries including four flour mills, cooper shops and a railroad depot, driven by the city's location on the navigable Root River near where it empties into the Mississippi River as well as the Root River Valley Railroad which ran through the north end of the village from nearby La Crescent to Rochester, Minnesota.

Hokah's other industries suffered from this loss of population and many of the other local businesses eventually closed.

[9] Hokah City Hall, built by the Works Progress Administration in 1938, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[17] Hokah also holds the record for the most rainfall in any month for the state of Minnesota at 23.86 inches, also set in August, 2007.

Hokah's location in the Driftless Area of southeastern Minnesota gives it a hilly landscape dominated by high bluffs and low river valleys known as coulees.

[20] Lake Como was a popular vacation spot in its heyday, drawing visitors from La Crosse and the surrounding area with lakeside cabins and boat rentals.

Until August 2018, the site of Lake Como was used as a community park, pool, and baseball field.

A severe storm in late August 2018 dumped almost eight inches of rain in the area in less than 24 hours, causing massive damage to the park and rerouting the path of water around the rock formation that made up Como Falls, basically destroying the falls.

[20] In the following months, local and state parties' funding was allocated to rebuilding the route for water that creates Como Falls.

Two nearby motor vehicle bridges span the Mississippi River and connect the southeastern corner of Minnesota to the La Crosse area in Wisconsin: six miles north of Hokah, the Mississippi River Bridge carries U.S. routes 14 and 61 and connects downtown La Crescent, Minnesota to downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin, and eight miles north of Hokah, the I-90 Mississippi River Bridge in Dresbach carries Interstate 90 across the Mississippi River to northern La Crosse and Onalaska, Wisconsin.

South of Hokah, the nearest place for vehicles to cross the Mississippi River is at the Black Hawk Bridge, thirty miles away in Lansing, Iowa.

The nearby La Crosse Amtrak station provides daily service for the Empire Builder Amtrak route, and the La Crosse Regional Airport provides daily service to Chicago and Minneapolis via American Airlines and Delta Air Lines.