Population (2010) 22,886 Introduction After 43 miles of flowing from east to west, the Mississippi takes a sharp turn at Muscatine and resumes its mostly southward trek to the Gulf of Mexico. Muscatine was a busy industrial town for decades and still has its share of manufacturing, but many
Population (2010) Unincorporated History In 1839, William Chambers platted a village he called Salem but that was soon renamed Fairport. The village would become well known for a robust pottery industry. Elijah Sells, who served as Iowa’s Secretary of State from 1856-1863, founded the first pottery factory. In 1879,
Muscatine, Iowa was the pearl button manufacturing center of the world in the early 1900s. The buttons were made from mussels harvested from the Mississippi River, which is why the city's riverfront today has a very tall statue of a clammer. I got there on a morning when the river was entirely hidden by a
