Busy Beaver Button Co.

Location

Once upon a time, in the year 1995, a button company was born in the town of Bloomington, Indiana. It was called "Li'l One Inch Button Co," and was conceived by a student named Christen (Carter). She soon realized that there was more than just "a little" demand for 1 inch pins and wanted to start doing other sizes so the name changed to Busy Beaver Button Co. Throughout its youth, Busy Beaver traveled from Bloomington, to San Francisco and finally put down its roots in Chicago in 1998.Here's the story in Christen's own words: "I was doing one of those work-in-England programs and I made a friend, Mark Pawson, who was making buttons in London (they call them badges over there). I told him, "No one's making 1 inch buttons in The States anymore!" So, he showed me the ropes. I came back with a plan to make buttons, but really decided to go for it when a band I had met in London, Guided By Voices, told me they'd be my first customers if I did. So, I figured it was destiny. After I got the machine, I photocopied a few postcards and sent them off to labels in my record collection. That's how we got a lot of the customers we still have to this day." Busy Beaver does thousands of custom button orders a year, and still does the small orders even at the same price we started with, as well as larger orders that keep them going.