Keosauqua

City and administrative headquarters of Van Buren County, southeastern Iowa, on a bend in the Des Moines River; population (1990) 1,000. Products include wire and plastic products. Its 1842 courthouse is the oldest in use in Iowa in continuous use (a claim also made by Fort Madison, Iowa), and is the second oldest in the USA.

Settled in 1836 at Ely's Ford, Keosauqua was an early Mormon centre. In the 1830s the town was two settlements, called Des Moines and Van Buren. In 1839-49 it was the centre of the ‘Honey War’ with Missouri, a boundary dispute involving 19 km/12 mi of riverbank lined with ‘bee trees’; the Supreme Court decided in favour of Iowa. Historic attractions include the Des Moines River locks (1852), and the Des Moines bridge (1938), which was built on an earlier structure. Pearson House, built in the mid 1840s, was once a stop on the underground railway (an escape route for runaway slaves).

The name Keosauqua, with its American Indian origin, probably means ‘river of the monks’, and was called this after French monks who settled here. Phil Stong, best known for his novel State Fair (1932), was born here (1899).