- German button maker John Boepple immigrated to the U.S. after discovering freshwater mussel shells from the Midwest could produce valuable pearl buttons.
- Boepple settled in Muscatine, Iowa, in 1891, starting a button industry that boomed by producing 1.5 billion buttons annually by 1905, bringing economic prosperity but devastating local mussel populations.
- The pearl button industry used clammers to harvest mussels with techniques like crowfoot hooks, processing shells into blanks and polishing them, but it declined due to overharvesting and the rise of cheaper plastic buttons.
- Overharvesting and habitat destruction from river engineering and pollution severely reduced freshwater mussel species, though early conservation efforts, including Boepple's work at a biological station, began in response.
- Boepple's story ended tragically when he reportedly died from an infection after cutting his foot on a mussel, and today, freshwater mussels remain endangered, but their history offers lessons on resource management.