The Fairport Biological Station

By Vance Polton

Well, it's Wednesday and it's time to hit the road again. We'll head back in time to around 1916 and head east over to the town of Fairport in Muscatine county to visit the Fairport Biological Station, the first in the nation US Bureau of Fisheries freshwater research station.  Under the direction of Dr. Robert Coker the main focus of the Station during those early years was the artificial propagation of freshwater mussels so important to the pearl button industry centered in Muscatine, Iowa.  By the time of 1916, Dr. Coker had already been promoted and had left for Washington D.C., having been put in charge of hatchery production of food fishes by the Bureau, but he hadn't forgotten about Fairport and in his 1916 report: Fairport Fisheries Biological Station It's Equipment, Organization, and Functions (attached) he gives a full description of the Station during that first decade of its operation with lots of photographs and maps to look at.

I've attached another map of the Station that I made by combining and overlaying several maps that Coker had drawn and put into his 1916 report on the Station luckily they were all drawn to the same scale and with just a little computer magic I could combine them into one map.  I have also attached a newspaper article from an edition of The Muscatine Journal from 1910 detailing the Station and its operation and how important it was to the button industry and to the city of Muscatine.