We are on the move, homeward bound, and are in Marion, Illinois!

Today, we schlepped some 50 miles into Paducah, Kentucky to catch-up with friends whom we have not seen in two years – since we were last here witnessing the Solar Eclipse!

Paducah’s flood-wall murals present a public art experience available at all hours. They depict Paducah’s rich history in life-sized paintings on the river city’s flood-wall. These panoramic “Portraits from Paducah’s Past” overlook the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers and illustrate Paducah’s historical significance and relative connection.

Area riverbeds are rich with mussels whose shells, when polished, have luster suitable for processing into “pearl” buttons. In the late 19^th century, mussels were harvested from the river bottom; they were then cooked in vats for meat removal, and the shells were stockpiled on the riverbanks for shipment to the button factories.

For many years, shell-digger camps and huge piles of shells could be seen along the banks of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. The pearl button business became an important local industry when Captain Louis Igert moved his family to Paducah in 1920 and established the McKee Button Company.  By 1928, the National Button Producers Association proclaimed the business the largest producer of freshwater buttons in the world!

Pictured above is one of Paducah’s wall murals depicting the mussel shells on the banks of the river ready for their onward journey to become pearl buttons! The murals were really spectacular.