Pikes Peak State Park in Iowa

When someone says Pikes Peak, most people think of Pikes Peak in Colorado. But there is another Pikes Peak in Northeastern Iowa along the Upper Mississippi River. It has the honor to be the first Pikes Peak. In 1805, Zebulon Pike was sent to the Mississippi valley to select suitable locations for military posts. He liked the strategic point of the 500 foot bluff (highest on the Mississippi River) located at the confluence of the Wisconsin River and the Mississippi River. He informed the government it was an excellent location for a fort. But the government ended up choosing the prairie land around Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin instead. The bluff on the Iowa side of the river became known as Pikes Peak. In 1837 Alexander McGregor started a ferry service across the Mississippi River at the site of the town that bears his name. When his grand-niece passed away, the one who had inherited the land from McGregor, her will stated that Pikes Peak be given to the federal government as a gift. Congress gave it to the state of Iowa in 1935 and it became Pikes Peak State Park. The owners of the land never allowed settlers so the landscape does not vary much from what it looked like hundreds of years ago.