The Pearl of the Mississippi - Muscatine, Iowa

It all began in 1890 when a man named Boepple, from Germany, cut his foot on a shell while swimming in the Mississippi. Boepple had made buttons from horn in Germany and noticed that the shell had a pearly color and was quite hard. He determined it would make an ideal material for buttons.

He gathered up a few shells, rigged up an old lathe at home and proceeded to cut a dozen buttons. He sold these to a Muscatine store for ten cents. Prior to this time most of the buttons used in America were imported.

Boepple sold a man name Molis on the potential money to be made using clam shells for buttons. He asked Molis to lend him $10 to get started. The two men went to New York to obtain orders and as they traveled, told the story of the plentiful supply of clams in the Muscatine area. People came from all over to make their fortune in the Button Business.

A Button Boom Town is Born
The Fresh Water Pearl Button Rush Was On

First the young men of the town become interested, and then the women, children, old people and anyone who could get free to join the potential for fortune came. The rush brought house-boats, button shops and more excitement than Muscatine has ever known! A thousand house-boats were built that summer on the Mississippi shores. Thousands of families came from the East. Nearly every woodshed in town became a private button factory. In the files of button history of Muscatine are recorded over 300 names of button companies and individuals working from their own woodsheds, along with their addresses and the years in which they operated. Everyone it seems was vying for a piece of the action.

The Bubble Burst

Due to poor quality machinery and inefficiency, the quality of the buttons being produced was very poor. The market became flooded with buttons no one would buy and no one, not even Boepple, had grown rich.

The Barry Miracle Machine Enters

In a little plumbing shop run by Nick, Pat and Tom Barry, the idea for an automatic button machine was born. These men were mechanically inclined and the idea of revolutionizing the button business with their automatic machine obsessed them day and night. They finally perfected a machine which would accept blanks cut from shells and turn them out as finished buttons drilled and ready for polishing.

The Industry Was Now Ready To Expand

In 1914, Muscatine was declared the “Pearl Button Capital of the United States”. A number of button companies were born and grew to give Muscatine its new distinction as the Button Capital of the World. As of 2005, only a few of those companies remain.

The role played by the mussels growing quietly along the banks of the Mississippi in helping Muscatine to develop and grow can never really be counted. Appreciation is due to those who had the foresight, imagination and courage to turn that natural product into stable businesses and jobs for countless families who's offspring continue to live here and thrive in this town; a town whose prosperity is measured not only in dollars, but in proud spirit!

Yes! Our town is... "The Pearl of the Mississippi"

by Sally Exbom