[6] The Hotel Manning, a three-story relic from the Des Moines River's steamboat days, is Keosauqua's most notable landmark.

Over the next couple of years, through contributions and grants, they made repairs and updated improvements to bring the hotel back to its former grandeur.

The Hotel Manning today continues to be a centerpiece of southeastern Iowa culture and history.

When Brigham Young and his followers were exiled from their base at Nauvoo, Illinois in 1846, their caravan crossed the Des Moines River at Ely's Ford, just upriver from Keosauqua on what is now known as the Mormon Trail.

Van Buren County native Voltaire Twombly received the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions taken at Ft. Donelson during the American Civil War.

His post-war pursuits included a stint as mayor of Keosauqua and, as a businessman there, he built a stone building on the main street that remains to this day.

The 1839 Honey War, so named because three trees with beehives were cut down in the process, was fought south of Keosauqua in what is now Lacey-Keosauqua State Park.

Before it was over, militias from both sides faced each other, though the dispute was ultimately resolved without a shot being fired.

Lacey-Keosauqua is one of the largest state parks in Iowa and was built by the Civil Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.

Keosauqua hosts its annual Fall Festival the second full weekend in October.

[7] Keosauqua is in the Southern Iowa Drift Plain, formed by Pre-Illinoian glaciers approximately 300,000 years ago.

The topography of the area is heavily forested rolling hills, interspersed with farmland, and has many tributaries flowing into the Des Moines River.

The Des Moines was large enough to handle steamboat traffic in the 1800s and was the reason that Keosauqua was founded.

The racial makeup of the city was 98.59% White, 0.19% African American, 0.28% Asian, and 0.94% from two or more races.

The adjacent Hangman's Hollow is the site of the first legal hanging in the state of Iowa.