Muscatine

City and seat of Muscatine County, in southeastern Iowa; population (1996 est) 23,100. Muscatine lies on the Mississippi River, opposite Illinois City, Illinois, and 40 km/25 mi southwest of Davenport. A shipping and processing centre for the region's corn and other farm products, industries also include button production, furniture, lighting equipment, herbicides, and canned food.

Founded as a trading post in 1833, it was an important river port and lumber centre in the 19th century. Formerly called Bloomington, it was renamed Muscatine in 1849. The local pearl button industry using shells from freshwater mussels employed about half the workforce in 1900. Buttons are still made, but now mainly from plastic. There is a museum to the pearl button industry. The first Iowa passenger rail service reached Muscatine in 1855. On the national register of historic places are 13 of Muscatine's buildings, including the courthouse, which was erected in 1907, the third courthouse after the 1840 courthouse burned down in 1864, and the replacement which lasted until 1907.

It is the site of Muscatine Community College (founded in 1929). Wildcat Den State Park and the Fairport National Fish Hatchery lie 13 km/8 mi east-northeast of the city.