1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Muscatine

MUSCATINE, a city and the county-seat of Muscatine county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Mississippi river (here crossed by a wagon bridge), at the apex of the “great bend,” in the south-east part of the state. Pop. (1890), 11,454; (1900), 14,073, of whom 2352 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 16,178. It is served by the Chicago Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific, and the Muscatine North & South railways. It is built on high rocky bluffs, and is the centre of a pearl-button industry introduced in 1891 by J. F. Boepple, a German, the buttons being made from the shells of the fresh-water mussel found in the neighbourhood; and there are other manufactures. Coal is mined in the vicinity, and near the city are large market-gardens, the water-melons growing on Muscatine Island (below the city) and sweet potatoes being their most important products. The municipality owns and operates the Waterworks. Muscatine began as a trading-post in 1833. It was laid out in 1836, incorporated as a town under the name of Bloomington in 1839, and first chartered as a city, under its present name, in 1851.