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German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#31

Post by froindt »

waltbosz wrote: post #2

I went to Muscatine, Iowa on a work trip once. There was a restaurant there called Button Factory. It was housed in a former button factory. Pretty old building. The bar top had an epoxy inlay with embedded buttons that were produced in the factory. The meal was pretty good. The restaurant closed in 2012.

There was a button museum at the time, though I never made it in. I'm not sure if the museum is in the same spot as the restaurant was, as I was there in 2017.

One block over from the museum, there was recently a partial building collapse. 20 buildings were evacuated and 17 are still not able to be occupied.

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#32

Post by m3047 »

vitally3643 wrote: post #26
del82 wrote: post #10

I recently learned about using mussels for buttons when I visited the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa and have been wondering since: can Zebra Mussels be used for buttons? That would create (even more) economic incentive to go after them.

An economic incentive to hunt a particular species does not result in a decrease in population. What you have instead is an economic incentive to breed large populations in uncontrolled conditions, likely on public land, which then get abandoned and/or released when you realize the economic incentive has made your invasive species problem far, far worse. This has happened many times throughout history.

Yes, for instance a bounty on rats leads to pet rats and tailless rats.

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#33

Post by pfdietz »

fusslo wrote: post #25
whyage wrote: post #23

Is the fact that he was of German descent material to how the events transpired? Not sure why it's even mentioned in the headline.

I think it's because it's the Smithsonian magazine. Smithsonian celebrates the origins of people and things that shaped some part of American history. It's significant that "Boepple immigrated to the United States in the late 1880s, resolving to search for more of these freshwater mussels." And he was German. Lots of Germans emigrated to the USA, especially around that time. so it's important context of who this man…

My patrilineal ancestor came over somewhere around then (or, at least, between the end of the Civil War and then, records are not clear). It would be nice to trace that back into Germany but records don't seem to be easily available, if they even exist.

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#34

Post by iamflimflam1 »

froindt wrote: post #31
waltbosz wrote: post #2

I went to Muscatine, Iowa on a work trip once. There was a restaurant there called Button Factory. It was housed in a former button factory. Pretty old building. The bar top had an epoxy inlay with embedded buttons that were produced in the factory. The meal was pretty good. The restaurant closed in 2012.

There was a button museum at the time, though I never made it in. I'm not sure if the museum is in the same spot as the restaurant was, as I was there in 2017. One block over from the museum, there was recently a partial building collapse. 20 buildings were evacuated and 17 are still not able to be occupied.

Reminds me of the famous Keswick pencil museum: https://www.derwentart.com/en-gb/c/about/company/derwent-pen...

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#37

Post by n2d4 »

cma5 wrote: post #35

When you translate Johns surname into German, you get Böppel, which is slang for sth. small which you don‘t know the exact word for. So basically Böppel was making Böppel.

Nominative determinism! The hypothesis that people tend to do things that remind them of their own names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#38

Post by ourmandave »

waltbosz wrote: post #2

I went to Muscatine, Iowa on a work trip once. There was a restaurant there called Button Factory. It was housed in a former button factory. Pretty old building. The bar top had an epoxy inlay with embedded buttons that were produced in the factory. The meal was pretty good. The restaurant closed in 2012.

I grew up in Muscatine along the river and always wondered why the shore was littered with shells with holes in them. As a kid, being told there used to be a button factory was good enough for me. I should visit the museum some day.

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#39

Post by waltbosz »

froindt wrote: post #31
waltbosz wrote: post #2

I went to Muscatine, Iowa on a work trip once. There was a restaurant there called Button Factory. It was housed in a former button factory. Pretty old building. The bar top had an epoxy inlay with embedded buttons that were produced in the factory. The meal was pretty good. The restaurant closed in 2012.

There was a button museum at the time, though I never made it in. I'm not sure if the museum is in the same spot as the restaurant was, as I was there in 2017. One block over from the museum, there was recently a partial building collapse. 20 buildings were evacuated and 17 are still not able to be occupied.

I think the museum is a different spot nearby.

I found the restaurant on google street view, the pictures go back to 2008! https://maps.app.goo.gl/UxWzN5bcd4cLG6eH9

Re: German button maker searched rivers of American Midwest for valuable shells

#40

Post by stronglikedan »

fmajid wrote: post #19
giarc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As noted in the article, plastic buttons displaced buttons made from clamshells long ago. I doubt a market for zebra mussel buttons could make any dent on the population.

Premium shirts still have shell buttons. Zebra mussels are too small to make buttons, however.

small, or thin? they look wide enough when I pull up some images, but it's hard to gauge how thin they are
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