Buttons made Muscatine 'Pearl of the Mississippi'

"Plastics" was the single word of career advice whispered smugly by a family friend to newly minted college grad Benjamin, played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film "The Graduate."

It's not known who first mentioned "plastics" around Muscatine, Iowa, but it is a dead certainty that it was not good news for this Mississippi River town. It helped kill off the city's major industry.

The story begins in 1887 when German immigrant John F. Boepple, a skilled button cutter, began experimenting with mussel shells pulled from the Mississippi. He had noticed their pearly color and discovered these shells were ideal for cutting into button blanks and thus helped launch a new American industry. At the time, most buttons used in the U.S. were imported.

By 1905, during the height of button production, Muscatine's 45-plus factories manufactured 1.5 billion buttons, nearly 40 percent of the world's output. More than 300 button "companies," some little more than backyard woodsheds, were engaged in the industry.

But that industry was doomed. With the development of plastics, cheap buttons flooded the marketplace, driving local firms out of business. Muscatine's production of pearl buttons fell off and ceased altogether in the 1960s. Today, the three button factories that remain use materials other than pearl.

Meanwhile, Muscatine, an active and diverse city of 24,000, has remade itself, restoring its historic downtown, prizing its living textbook of architecture. While today's tourists might visit to learn about the button industry, they linger to enjoy the quiet charms of this delightful river town with its hilly bluffs full of fine homes.

Mark Twain, who lived there for a while (his brother was editor of the local newspaper), was impressed with the natural beauty of this community tucked between two river bluffs along his beloved Mississippi River. "I remember Muscatine for its sunsets," he wrote. "I have never seen any on either side of the ocean that equaled them." The town's name is said to derive from an American Indian word meaning "island of fire," referring to the deep and vivid reflected colors of the setting sun.

Don't miss a stop at the Muscatine Island Produce Markets that showcase watermelons and other produce from adjacent family farms. Especially notable are juicy watermelons that you might judge to be the best you've ever tasted. Melon growers attribute their excellence to ideal growing conditions that combine long warm days and light, sandy, well-drained soil. Shop also for seasonal cantaloupes, green beans, sweet corn and tomatoes, plus fall favorites including pumpkins, Indian corn and gourds.

Perhaps the most photographed local attraction is Pine Creek Grist Mill, built in 1848 and Iowa's oldest operational mill. Recently restored, it is a splendid example of a mid-19th-century mill and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The mill is within Wildcat Den Park, where it occupies a picturesque setting along the banks of Pine Creek, next to an old iron bridge. Near the mill is the one-room Melpine Schoolhouse, circa 1880.

Another undeniably pretty spot is the All-American rose garden at Weed Park. It is one of only two All-American rose gardens in Iowa (the other is in Ames).

The Muscatine Art Center incorporates the 1908 Edwardian-style Laura Musser Mansion and the adjoining contemporary Stanley Art Gallery. The mansion, built by ultra-wealthy lumber baron Peter Musser as a wedding gift for his daughter, Laura, contains exquisite examples of period furnishings, rare antiques and priceless works of art. The Mary Musser Gilmore Collection features 27 works by French impressionists, including Pissarro, Rodin, Utrillo, Boudin, Chagall and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Housed in a former Montgomery Ward department store, the Muscatine History & Industry Center is ready with everything you ever wanted to know about button making. It begins with an introductory video and includes life-size dioramas of a mussel-gathering boat and re-creation of an early riverside shelling encampment where fires were built to pop open shells that had "clamed up." Showcases display the many different types of items manufactured by the button companies, including mother-of-pearl buckles and sequins.

The museum also chronicles labor strife and the coming of union organizers and documents the exploitation of cheap labor, with workers sewing buttons on cards (a dozen per card) and earning a nickel per 144 cards. You'll learn that Ronald Reagan once participated in the ceremony to crown the "Button Queen" and that byproducts of the button industry include ground shells used to mark white boundary lines on athletic fields and to create stucco walls.

For a look at the hardworking nature of the river, visit Lock and Dam No. 16 and watch barges and tugs pass through. During winter, this is a prime spot to observe American bald eagles fishing the open waters created by the dam.

If pigs could, indeed, fly, their flight plans would steer them well clear of the Button Factory Woodfire Grille. This former manufacturing plant houses one of Muscatine's most popular restaurants. Specialties include thick Iowa pork chops grilled over hickory and apple hardwoods and "flat iron steak," a 12-ounce juicy, tender cut. This eatery also dishes up fine river views, especially from its dining patio.

If you go

Information: Muscatine Convention & Visitors Bureau, (800) 257-3275, www.meetmuscatine.com; Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, (800) 747-7800, www.visitquadcities.com; Iowa Tourism, (800) 345-4692, www.traveliowa.com.

Mileage: Muscatine is about 205 miles west of Chicago.

Mike Michaelson is a travelwriter based in Chicago andthe author of the guidebook"Chicagoâ#128;™s Best-Kept Secrets."