page_title: Hotel Manning
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hotel Manning / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Closeup image of the Hotel Manning inKeosauqua, Iowa. Details of the "steamboat design" are clearly visible.
context_page_description: Hotel Manning is a historic hotel located in Keosauqua, Van Buren County, Iowa, United States on the banks of the Des Moines River. The hotel's Steamboat Gothic architecture mimics riverboats of the mid-1800s. Hotel Manning was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in April, 1973. It currently operates as a bed & breakfast.
context_section_description: The Hotel Manning was constructed in the late 1890s by Edwin Manning. He was one of the founding fathers of Keosauqua, first arriving there in 1837 and later helping plat the town. Manning established a mercantile store in 1839, then expanded his business enterprise by adding a bank to the location in 1854. However two devastating fires in the mid-1890s forced Manning to move his business elsewhere in town. Urged by one of his sons, Manning salvaged the remaining post-fire walls and foundation for the basis of his hotel, adding a second and third story to the structure between 1897 and 1899.
  A grand-opening celebration for the Hotel Manning was held on April 27, 1899 with over 300 guests in attendance, and an orchestra.
  Over the years the hotel's location next to the Des Moines River proved to be both a blessing and a curse, as the river flooded the Manning on at least four occasions; the most significant of these was in 1901 when the hotel was inundated by seven feet of water. The year 1901 proved a double tragedy with the death of Edwin Manning. The Manning family continued to operate the hotel for another two decades until hard times in the rural farm economy in the mid-1920s forced the Manning bank into receivership and Hotel Manning sold with its other assets.
  In the 1940s local restaurateur Mable Miller purchased the hotel and operated it for the next forty-plus years. Under Miller's ownership Hotel Manning was operated largely as a boarding house. During the 1960s she expanded the business by adding a single-level annex. When Van Buren County's economy became more tourism-based beginning in the 1970s, Miller secured the Hotel Manning a place on the National Register of Historic Places and also received a Federal grant to undertake a major restoration.
caption: A closeup of Hotel Manning and its Steamboat Gothic architecture
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