“La Riviere Blanche,” as the White River, was called by the early French traders, has been a source of water, transportation, recreation, and livelihoods from the days the first inhabitants set foot in the White River Valley. Cruising on Lake Taneycomo today, with its depth controlled by two dams, it’s hard to picture a White River that, most of the time was so low that the appearance of even a shallow draft steam boat, with about the same draft as Main Street Lake Cruises’ Lake Queen‘s four feet, was a rare occurrence or, although relatively infrequently, was flooded its banks with water so high and swift that it destroyed virtually everything in its path. However, that was the White River of Ozark and Branson history until the Power Site Dam formed Lake Taneycomo in 1913 and Table Rock Dam was completed in 1959.
From the trapping done by the early trappers to the electricity generated at various dams since 1913 and the tourism industry supported by lakes like Table Rock, Bull Shoals and Lake Taneycomo today, the White River has played a central part in daily lives and economic opportunities available to those living in the Branson area. One of the lessor known was from “clam digging,” which, from a White River perspective, has an entirely different meaning than “clam digging” does along ocean coast lines.
The White River was home to over two dozen different type of mussels, which are referred to alternately as “clams” in different history books. The early Indian inhabitants of the White River region used the mussels for food, implements and what would today be called “jewelry.” However, even though mussels, like the “oyster” make pearls it was not until 1897, when Dr. J. H. Myers found a “14 grain, fine luster, pinkish colored pearl” that the pearl and related industries got their start along the White River. The news of his discovery spread quickly and there was a virtual “pearl rush” to the mussel bars along the White River in search of pearls.
The value of a pearl then was determined about the same way it is today based on shape, size, color and other characteristics. Although records show that prices as high as $1,100.00 were paid for some pearls, prices above $2.00 per pearl was the exception not the rule with many selling for a dollar or less. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but when the prevailing wage in the region at that time was about $.50 cents a day the “pearl hunter” did pretty well.
In 1900, soon after the pearling industry started, it was discovered that there was a market for the thick mussel shells. Button plants, in Kansas, Iowa and elsewhere were making “Pearl Buttons” from the shells, but there was a very high ratio of shells to finished buttons estimated by some to be 40 tons of shells to get one ton of buttons. To overcome this challenge “button blank” plants to be set up at various places along the White River where the raw shells were processed into various sized “button blanks” by “punching” them out of the shell.
These blanks were purchased by shell buyers when they came down the White River by flat boat, twice a year for consolidation and shipment to the button factories where they were processed into the finished button. With the coming of the railroad to Branson in 1906 the button blanks were transported overland to Branson and shipped by rail to button plants including Muscatine, which was, at the time known as “The Pearl Button Capital of the World” and the “Iola Button Factory,” which went out of business during the “great depression.”
When the supply of mussels started to dry up and newer and easier to work with materials came along toward the end of the 1930’s there was no more demand for the shells and the “clam digger” went the way of the railroad “Hacker” before them. One thing remained constant however, “La Riviere Blanche” rolled on and, with the completion of the Table Rock Dam and formation of Table Rock Lake in 1959, helped grow and nurture the tourism industry which is the current economic foundation of Branson today.