Three-story stone warehouse along riverfront. Gambrel roof, stone lintels, two stories above street, two doors open out to street side. A line of lean-to bins with roofs line the structure on the south side. These date to the button company era and at one time a two-story frame structure (roof line visible on east wall) and a single story shed were east and north of the building.

The Clayton County Register announced that Wiest had begun a warehouse across from his hardware store by August 10, 1858. This would date this structure slightly later than the other warehouses. The 1858 city map locates the building, and the 1869 overview indicates that the building in its present state was standing then. The building served the Wiest Hardware Store and later the Class Warehouse. Wiest also purchased local grain and produce and shipped these goods out by steamboat, as did the other warehouses. In 1910, the third pearl button plant opened in this building. The Empire Pearl Button Company of Muscatine installed electric driven cutting machines. Chris Frommelt was superintendent. This plant outlasted the other two plants and during the Depression, state funds subsidized a return to full operation and employment. By 1928, the name of the plant was "American Pearl Button Plant #1". The plant operated into the 1950's when plastic buttons put an end to this mode of button manufacture.

Benskin Brothers purchased the building in 1963; it has been idle since "Hammer's Button Plant", which closed in 1957. It has since been used as a warehouse in conjunction with Benskin Boatline. Benskin leveled the mound of clamshells and removed some of the old sheds. The Boatline had previously operated out of the upper stone warehouse at 431 South River Park Drive (lower level). It was organized in 1953. The present floating dock and office were built in 1964.

 

The building was renovated it in the late 1990's and the Inn opened in 2001.