If you visit Pike’s Peak State Park near McGregor Iowa, you will enjoy a unique view of the Wisconsin River meeting the great Mississippi River.

Native Americans sculpted earthen effigy mounds on ridge tops, long before explorer Louis Joliet and Father James Marquette arrived in 1673. After the Louisiana Purchase, the government sent Zebulon Pike in 1805 to explore the Mississippi valley and select locations suitable for military posts. Pike recognized the park site as an important, strategic point, and an excellent location for a fort. Several years later, Pike was again sent westward by the government and named Pikes Peak in Colorado.

Who knew that the”original” Pike’s Peak was in Iowa?