Every old river town along the Mississippi has a rich history…many were involved in trading and transport of goods (and still are). And this goes back as far as the late 1700’s when Julien Dubuque arrived in Northeast Iowa. Lumber was big back in the late 1800’s. For Muscatine (where I live), the harvesting of river muscle shells turned the town into the pearl button capital of the world. At its peak in the early 1900’s the industry manufactured 1.5 billion mother-of-pearl buttons per year that were shipped worldwide.
The one major connector for all of these towns was the river itself…and the riverboats that traveled it. Apart from the eventual railroads, boats were the most efficient mode of transport for people and supplies. The paddlewheel steamers could steal your heart too…just ask Mark Twain (a former riverboat pilot in his own right).
In this image, the American Queen riverboat…which in my view is the most iconice paddle-wheeler still running up and down the Mississippi…visits Muscatine and is docked next to our Mississippi Harvest (Clammer) statue, which is dedicated to all those who worked in the pearl button industry so long ago.