Down slippery rocks along a creek in Camden, Tennessee, a small flatbed boat sits anchored in shallow water. It's used to harvest beautiful pearls from Tennessee River mussels in the bay of Birdsong Resort, Marina and Campground.

John Nerren, known as "Diver John," has worked at the Tennessee River Freshwater Pearl Farm since the early 1980s.

Though pearls have a rich history dating back thousands of years, the farm is the only one of its kind in all of North America.

"When I first started, [it] might have been a little over 45 [years ago], I was 14. An old Army sergeant gathered up a bunch of us and said, 'Come on, boys, make a living digging clams,'" Nerren said.

The early days of the farm

At that time, the farm was still in its infancy. Only a few years prior, the Keast family — wh

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