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C
l i n t o n , I o w a
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Howes
Jewelers selling Mississippi River Pearls
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Owners Edward Madison Howes and Benjamin Durward Howes. After
the robust sawmill days of Clinton ended, the brothers closed
the store. EM Howes continued with Real Estate and became the
Mayor of Clinton.
Benjamin later moved to Los Angeles and founded B.D. Howes &
Son Jewelers in 1919. The company eventually grew to 10 stores
in California, Arizona and Hawaii.
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Howes
Bros. Jewelry Store circa 1911 in Clinton, IA.
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"HOWES BROS. are the headquarters
for choice pearls. They have brought many, and the senior goes
out and rakes them in. That one from Albany, Ill., is a particularly
fine and valuable one, and E. M. got it by going after it and
bidding up on it.
Take your pearls to Howes Bros. "
from The Clinton Mirror P.O. Lyons, Iowa Clinton, Iowa,
Saturday, Sept 23, 1899
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Unfortunately,
Mississippi River Pearls are no longer harvested
due to 20th century pollution. Although the mighty Mississippi
has
been drastically cleaned up, it's pearls have not yet returned.
The Smithsonian Museum is the recepient of a collection of
Mississippi River Pearls
donated by B.D. Howes & Son Jewelers.
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The English colonizers along North America's Atlantic coast and
French explorers
to the north and west, all found native Americans wearing pearls,
and they discovered
freshwater pearls in the Ohio, Mississippi, and Tennessee River
basins.
So many gems were exported to Europe that the New World quickly
gained the appellation "Land of Pearls."
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