The Pearl Button Capital of the World--In Iowa

On a recent trip to visit my in-laws, I noticed a brown historical marker just outside Muscatine, Iowa: "Pearl Button Capital of the World." Such an unlikely designation for a landlocked town. However, research shows it's not as unlikely as I first thought.

For much of the 1800s, people harvested freshwater pearl mussels mostly for their pearls. The shells were used on the roads and the meat--which was not fit to consume--was dumped.  Turns out, this section of the Mississippi, where there is a northerly swing which slows the water, is prime for freshwater mussels. Hence, it was perfect for mussel harvesting.

In 1887, German button maker John Frederick Boepple (that's him on the right), arrived in the United States and settled in the Mississippi River town of Muscatine, Iowa. New tariffs on his buttons in Germany had cut drastically into his profit and he decided to relocated to the United States. Armed with maps of the rivers of America, he began to search for new supplies of mussel shells. He found what he was looking for in Muscatine when he waded into the muddy waters and pulled up a mussel the size of a baby elephant’s ear.

Boepple opened a mother-of-pearl button factory in 1891, supplied by an abundance of thick-shelled American pearl mussels from nearby rivers and streams. By 1900, this small Iowa town had earned the right to call itself the "Pearl Button Capital of the World," out-producing more established button-making centers in Europe. By 1905 button makers in Muscatine produced 1.5 billion buttons—almost 40 percent of the buttons produced in the entire world.

They held their distinction in the world until the plastic button industry undercut them. With the decline of the button business, most of Muscatine’s mussel fishers began sending their shell to factories in Japan and other foreign shores where bits of the shells were turned into nuclei used to seed marine pearl oysters for cultured pearls. At its height in 1993, the industry exported nearly 7,000 tons of shells. This region remains the major source of nuclei for use in pearl culturing worldwide.

On a rather sad side-note, Boepple died of a blood infection after cutting his heel on a mussel shell while wading in the Mississippi. He was working with the Fairport Federal Hatchery biological station in Muscatine to re-seed the rivers and help salvage the marine creatures and the local shell industry that had long supported this small Iowa river town.

Want to see how a pearl button is made? Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_eyCNj-M0

 

Tracy