Road Trip Through History: The National Brewery Museum

Some museums are the road trip equivalent of a destination wedding: you plan the trip for the purpose of visiting that museum. Some museums are must-sees. (Though I must admit that we’ve missed a few of those on previous Great River Road adventures because of scheduling difficulties. *Sigh*) And others are a fun stop when…

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Road Trip Through History: Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button

The nineteenth century button industry based on fresh-water mussels was a recurring theme of our ten days on the Great River Road this year. In 1891 a German button manufacturer named John Frederick Boepple opened a button factory in Muscatine, Iowa, after a change in tariff laws caused his business in Germany to fail. Shell…

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