WAUPACA COUNTY POST

September 12, 1923

LOWLY BUTTONS IN SELECT CLASS

Many tons of pearl buttons, numbering millions, are manufactured annually from the clam shells taken from the Mississippi river and inland Wisconsin streams.

At the Prairie du Chien factory about 5,000 pounds of button blanks number about 200 blanks to the pound are now being shipped monthly to Amsterdam, N.J., where they are put through the finishing process. The blanks are little round pieces of shell cut about the size of the button and later finished in the east.

About a dozen ordinary sized buttons are cut from each half shell. The nigger head and yellow sand shell make the best buttons. Only a white shell can be used, because the colored ones run irregular in shades and manufacturers can stain white buttons when colors are desired and get uniform results.

Oyster shells do not make good buttons. The shells are too brittle.

The button industry – that is, the pearl button – was introduced in this country in 1890 by J.F. Boepple of Hamburg, Germany, who located the first factory at Muscatine, Iowa. Up to that time Germany supplied the American market with pearl buttons.

Now there are from 500 to 600 factories in the country, including those at LaCrosse, Fremont and Stevens Point. Wisconsin buttons are sold in all parts of the world.

What remains of the shells after the blanks have been cut out is ground up for poultry feed. This in turn produces about 20 per cent of dust so fine that it is used like lime to sweeten sour soil. The shell runs about 96 per cent in lime.

Shells taken from the Rock and Fox rivers usually command a higher price than Mississippi shells. - Milwaukee Journal