Where Did Buttons Come From

Where Did Buttons Come From. . Button making was once big business in this area. There were 14 local species of mussels used for buttons. Today most are gone and some are extinct., The 1910 Census of 166 families in Leavenworth showed 32 men worked as button-cutters, 4 were sorters and 1 was the engine man. Others were braillers who fished for the mussels. The men cut the buttons from the mussel shells, and for a short time, the women sewed the buttons on to cards in sets to be distributed to stores., When not finished locally, rough cut buttons were shipped to Massachusetts. The owner of the Leavenworth button industry had several other factories that could polish the rough blanks and drill holes., A secondary industry arose using the mussel shell button blanks, which for a time were piling up in front of the factory. They were ground up for chickens (to provide calcium) and used for street gravel., Captions (clockwise from top right) , . Pizzike Carver of Leavenworth casting off for a day of mussel fishing in his brailler boat (note the braille hooks). , . A local button factory housed in the former county courthouse, is shown here with their workers (before and after they found a use for the mussel shells). , . Inside the Leavenworth button factory (right)ca. 1910. An original button cutter (above)can still be seen at the General Store in Leavenworth along with button blanks such as the one above.