Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-07-23
TELLS OF BUTTONS
Stanley Dubois Describes Growth
of Claiming Indus
try.
F. BoEPPLE ORIGINATOR
From Small Beginning In Few
Years Great Business has
Grown.

Blessed is the man who makes two
blades of grass grow where was but
one" That is not quite the way the
old saw runs, but that's what it
means, and proving around Daven-
port few days ago l ran across just
such man and think you will be in
terested to know about him and what
he has done in the matter of making
grass grow-which, by the way, is
not grass at all, but the perfecting of
an industry which, till he took charge
of it, can be said to have scarcely ex-
listed in this country.
Twelve years ago there landed in
Rock Island an Austrian emigrant
by the name of John +. Boepple He
did not have a dollar to his name, or
friend. He got a job carrying hod
for Mr.. Denkmann, a building con
tractor. Sundays he strolled along
the river bank, often taking off his
shoes and stockings and wigglng
with his toes in the mud fished up
CLAIMS. River CLAIMS are not very good
eating, but they are a long way better
than nothing, and our Austrian was
not fastidious, and he was hungry.
In his native land he had been
button maker, but there wasn't any
thing of the sort for him to work at
in this country at all. CLAIMS are
plenty i'll the Mississippi river and its
immediate tributaries, and the out
come of these Sunday barefoot eXcur-
sions in the mud was that he gather
ed several bushels of clam shells, then
with some of his saved up earnings he
rugged up a rude but effective little
lathe, drill press and shaper, all
foot power. and started in to make
| buttons out of clam shells.
Owns Many Factories.
There are now probably so factories
up and down the Mississippi river, all
under his control. employing within
the buildings from a dozen to one
hundred hands each. On IA recent trip
on the United States snag boat, Col.
\. Mackenzie, between ST. Paul and
Rock Island, they counted 1,776 clam
| fishers at work in the river, and
doubtless there were quite as many
who were not in evidence.
\ clam fishers boat is curiosity;
ii is no beauty; il is heavy; il is desti-
| tute of paint and as filthy as a gar
bage cart. The clammer is no dude.
| He is not troubled in the least about
| the appearance of his craft or him
/ self; results are all he is after
CLANS, and he fishes for them with
hooks and lines. lines about feet
long, dozen or more of them at
| tached to 1O-foot lengths of one-inch
gas pipe. which he throws overheard
and drags along the bottom, edge up,
| open. When they feel the lines run
across them they snap shut and hold
on, they are ierked off into the boat,
and the operation repeated until there
| is a load. muddy. heavy lot of stuff.
Then the clammer goes to shore.
dumps the clans in an old lard can or
wash boiler-anything that will hold
a whole lot, fills il with water, builds
fire under it, When the water gets
warm the CLAIMS open and he prizes
them apart easier. He does not bring
them to Il boil. The shells go one
way, the meat anothr. The vicinity
of a clammer's camp is as vie a place
as you can imagine.
The cIammer has an eve out for
pearls, and though not one in ten
thousand has a pearl i'm it. that one
has. and he may be the lucky man to
find it.
| | was shown half pint of pearls,
the other day ranging from half as
big as grain of rice to as large as
a large navy bean, worth all the way
from nothing to $500, all found in
river CLAIMS.
|