Muscatine, situated on one of the largest eastwest bends of the Mississippi River, grew from a small territorial trading post into an Iowa community rich in agricultural bounty and manufacturing ingenuity. Mussels harvested from the mighty Mississippi propelled the city to the status of the Pearl Button Capital of the World by the turn of the 20th century. Booming lumber yards, sash and door manufacturers, and the first H. J. Heinz canning facility built outside of Pittsburg added to the towns growth and prosperity. An aspiring writer named Samuel Clemens, civil rights pioneer Alexander Clark Sr., the self-proclaimed cancer cure of Norman Baker, and other notables add even more texture to the towns rich heritage. The story of Muscatine is traced through these businesses and the men and women who left a legacy of work ethic that defines the Midwest.

The Mississippi River town of Muscatine produced billions of pearl buttons. By 1905, Muscatine made 37 percent of the worlds buttons and earned the title of Pearl Button Capital of the World. The rise and fall of the pearl button occurred over a period of 75 years. John Frederick Boepple, a German immigrant button maker, launched the industry in 1891. The button and clamming industries started small but quickly overwhelmed the town. Clamming became the Mississippi Rivers gold rush while large automated factories and shell-cutting shops employed nearly half the local workforce. Entire familiesmen, women, and childrencontributed to the industry, giving weight to the popular local saying No Muscatine resident can enter Heaven without evidence of previous servitude in the button industry. Although the industry peaked in 1916, several decades passed before the American-made pearl button buckled under the pressure of foreign competition, changing fashion, limited availability of shell, and the development and refinement of plastic buttons.