The last button factory has recently closed here in Muscatine, Iowa, USA. The J & K Button Company.

I asked the owner, my friend, Bill McGowen, if I could take photos of his factory before it closed and the building demolished.

I spent a morning taking over 800 photos. At over 22,000 square feet that place was cavernous.

J & K Buttons opened in 1955 and up until very recently still manufactured plastic buttons. Even the last month before closing, Bill mentioned to my son, Andrew, that maybe he'd make one more batch of plastic buttons. It's hard to say goodbye.

Bill McGowen

Originally, J & K Button Company produced mother of pearl buttons, often referred to as "pearl buttons".

The J & K stand for Janet and Kaye, women in the family. I also saw some literature for the company referring to the J & K as "Jewel Kissed".

Enjoy a few of my photos of J & K Button Company.

Muscatine was known as the Pearl Button Capital of the World because of the numerous firms that produced buttons here.

Muscatine’s pearl button industry hit its peak between 1908 and the ’20s, when factories in the Iowa town produced 1.5 billion buttons, or one-third of the world’s pearl button supply.

Two more button factories that closed within the last few years are Weber & Sons and McKee.

I wrote this page about the local Pearl Button Museum.

Christmas Table at My Home

God bless and thank you for being a part of KariPearls.