First mention of the town was in 741, although it had been settled way before then. Graves marked from as early as the 6th century have been found. There are
Christian and
pagan burials in this Festung Road cemetery.
Artifacts found in the graves included a longsword and pottery. An even older cemetery found on Bamberger Road shows evidence of settlement in the 4th century. During the
Middle Ages, the town was ruled by
tribal duchies as the
Duchy of Franconia. The town was granted a
city charter in 1235. Königshofen was owned by the
House of Henneberg in 1200. In 1353, the heiress Elisabeth of Henneberg married
Eberhard II, Count of Württemberg and he sold the town in 1354 to the
bishops of Würzburg. They subsequently expanded the town into a
fortress. The
House of Henneberg acquired the castle in 1400 and in 1412 they bought the entire town back from the Würzburg monastery. Later, the town became home to an episcopal
bailiff. In 1603, there was a
Leper colony called the Siechhaus in the town. Bad Königshofen was the terminus of the 23.2 km Bad Neustadt–Bad Königshofen railway line (
:de:Bahnstrecke Bad Neustadt–Bad Königshofen) that followed the Franconian Saale River from Bad Neustadt an der Saale. The railway, also known as the Grabfeld Railway (Grabfeldbahn), opened in 1873. Passenger services ended in 1976, freight service ended in 1994, and the track was dismantled in 1997. On 8 April 1945 the 3rd Battalion of the U.S. 180th Regiment, 45th Infantry Division captured several towns from Volkershausen to Königshofen. ==Demographics==