[13] Williams wrote a brief description of the settlement: Bloomington is a fine town, one of the most important points in the state.

Contains about 2000 inhabitants, is the natural depository for a vast amount of trade from the surrounding country, has many neat residences and several spacious brick mercantile establishments- a large steam mill, one smaller one, two printing establishments, 6 churches, 4 physicians, 8 lawyers, an neat court house and jail, Masonic lodge, etc....

This town is very prettily situated, in part on a level on the river for two streets back, when the ground rises and the remaining street is elevated in benches, the whole standing in a rise enclosed by a range of high bluffs which runs around it in a semicircular form, forming beautiful sites for residences.

He was a barber, a respected position at the time, and eventually became a wealthy timber salesman and real estate speculator.

In 1848 he was among the founders of the local African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had been established as the first independent black denomination in the US.

In the antebellum period he assisted fugitive slaves, and petitioned the state government to overturn racist laws before the Civil War.

He was one of four Muscatine residents to be appointed as a diplomatic envoy between 1855 and 1900, a remarkable feat for a town of such small size: George Van Horne was consul at Marseille, France during the 1860s; Samuel McNutt served at Maracaibo, Venezuela in 1890; and Frank W. Mahin represented his country in Liberec (Reichenberg), Austria-Hungary in 1900.

In 1975 the city moved his former house about 200 feet (61 m), to make room for a low-income apartment complex for senior citizens; the latter was named in his honor.

Mark Twain lived in the city briefly during the summer of 1855 while working at the local newspaper, the Muscatine Journal, which was partly owned by his brother, Orion Clemens.

They used the broad smooth river as a canvas, and painted on it every imaginable dream of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicacies of the opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blinding purple and crimson conflagrations which were enchanting to the eye, but sharply tried it at the same time.

He produced buttons that looked like pearls by machine-punching them from freshwater mussel shells harvested from the Mississippi River.

[14] Muscatine is nearly as well known as the "Watermelon Capital of the World",[14] a title that reflects the agricultural rural nature of the county.

[15][16] Muscatine was the home town and operating location of broadcaster Norman G. Baker, inventor of the calliaphone.

[17] Muscatine was formerly a stop on the shared Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad and Milwaukee Road line.

Restructuring of the railroads followed declines in passenger traffic and the Rock Island station was eventually demolished.

A portion of the Milwaukee Road's line is extant; it serves business and is used for the storage of rolling stock.

[18] On February 15, 2012, Xi Jinping, Vice President of the People's Republic of China, visited Muscatine.

[26] Muscatine is primarily located on a series of bluffs and hills at a major west-south bend in the Mississippi River.

This flat, sandy expanse was largely underwater before a portion of the Mississippi River rerouted to follow the course of the present-day Muscatine Slough.

The key feature of this region is that although the populated areas are non-contiguous, a high percentage of residents commute among the cities for work, particularly those in professional fields.

Headquartered in Muscatine, The HNI Corporation designs and manufactures office furniture including chairs, filing cabinets, workstations, tables, desks and educational furniture under various brand names The HON Company, Allsteel, HBF, Artcobell, Paoli, Gunlocke, Maxon, Lamex, bpergo, and Midwest Folding Products.

has two radio stations in Muscatine; KWPC-AM has been a long part of the city's history,[41] and KMCS-FM has been in the community since 1996.

Depending on location, terrain, and type of antenna used, some Muscatine area residents can also receive television signals from Cedar Rapids–Waterloo, and the Iowa side of the Ottumwa–Kirksville market.

In conjunction with Iowa 92, which provides access to the Avenue of the Saints (U.S. 218/IA 27) to the west and the lightly populated western Illinois via the Norbert Beckey Bridge to the east, Highway 61 serves as a shortcut for traffic from northeastern Missouri and southeastern Iowa en route to the Quad Cities, Chicago, and points beyond.

Additionally, Muscatine is connected to Interstate 80 to the north by fifteen miles (24 km) of Iowa Highway 38.

[47] In July 2014, the company agreed to new, more stringent, air emissions permits with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and federal regulators.

[50] Environmental improvements from GPC and other businesses in the area allowed EPA's Muscatine County SO2 Nonattainment Area, which includes all of the City of Muscatine,[51][52] to be re-classified to attainment status for EPA's 1-hour SO2 national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) on October 4, 2018.

[53] The actions required to achieve attainment status resulted in a reduction of over 10,000 lbs of SO2 emissions per year.

[54] The Muscatine Area Resource Recovery for Vehicles and Energy program (MARRVE) is building a food waste collection station for the anaerobic digesters at the municipal wastewater facility.

[55] MARRVE will generate biogas for vehicles and biosolids for fertilizer, while also reducing local methane emissions.