Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1912 — KANKAKEE RIVER SHELL MINE [ARTICLE]

KANKAKEE RIVER SHELL MINE

Rapidly Developing as an Important Center of Button Industry. , Washington, May 18. —The Kankakee river valley is rapidly developing as an important center of the shell button industry, according to a bulletin issued by the bureau of fisheries. The buttons are manufactured from the shells of mussels taken from the Kankakee river. “The moet profitable region com; mercialiy,” says the report, “is the stretch of river between Momence and Wilmington, 111., and this is now being expHoited. A shell deal-i er Muscatine, W. S. Berry, furnished the information that between Waldron and the Kankakee dam, 5% miles by water, he had obtained nine carloads of shells, and three below Kankakee, 90 per cent, of which were muclrets, with a few razorbacks, three ridges and big pink pocketbooks. “The three ridges were of little value on account of the deep furrows between the ridges. Below the Kankakee bridge, two hundred

tone were obtained within one thousand yards by means of the fork.” *