In 1890, the Colorado Sugar Beet Company was formed in Grand Junction and by 1898 had a factory there. They lured many immigrant families to the area, offering free land and beet seed, free water for five years and free tents.
German families were welcomed because sugar beets had been grown in Germany for many years and “they knew just how to do it,” according to the late Gordon Hodgin, Delta historian.
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Beet dumps were installed along the railroad tracks in Montrose, Olathe and Delta.
During harvest, long lines of wagons loaded with beets awaited their turn at the dump. Numerous train cars carried the beets to the Grand Junction factory, but, due to under-financing, the plant began to struggle.
Holly Sugar, formed in Colorado Springs and backed by investors such as Charles Boettcher, bought out the Grand Junction plant and urged more sugar beets to be grown in Montrose and Delta Counties.
The opening of the Gunnison Tunnel in 1909 furnished unlimited water to the Uncompahgre Valley. The end of WW I in 1918 brought more German families to the area. By 1920, Holly Sugar had a plant up and running in Delta with 40 full-time employees and 90 farmers working during the fall campaign.
Labor used in the fields was referred to as “stoop labor.” As the little plants started to surface, the beets had to be thinned. At harvest, they were loosened with a lifter, then had to be pulled and topped by hand and tossed into piles. The piles were shoveled by large forks into wagons, later into trucks, then hauled to the railroad.
The world’s best beets were grown in this area. Just like the present sweet corn, the warm days and cool nights were perfect to increase the sugar content. The length of the growing season was just right, as was the small amount of rainfall. The tubulars needed to mature underground; too much rain would have made the top plants grow instead.
The sugar beet industry brought many Mexicans into the area. In Montrose they were housed near what is now North 9th Street. In Delta, they stayed in World War I barrack tents and later an adobe complex referred to as “the colony.”
During World War II, German prisoners were housed in the CCC camp in Montrose and driven out into the country each day to work in the beet fields. Later, Navajo Indian workers were transported to this area from Arizona reservations.
The beet acreage increased from 3,000 in 1898 to 12,500 in 1976. The price of beets grew from $5 a ton to $13.50 and Holly’s payroll during their last year of operation (1976-77) was $14.5 million. More than 1000 employees were working at the factory during that last processing season.
Every farmer in the valley seemed to be connected to the sugar beet industry in one way or another. Many were growers, some worked in the plant, others hauled hay to the adjoining feed lot, which used the beet by-products for feed and some hauled away cinders for their driveways or lime to sweeten a patch of alkali ground.
With little or no warning, the sugar beet plant that had operated for 56 years closed its doors after the 1976 season, putting hundreds out of work. A change in investors, transportation costs and politics each played a part in the demise of the biggest industry in the valley.
Dont Burn Food wrote on Jun 19, 2008 10:06 AM:
Patriot Dynamite wrote on Jun 16, 2008 6:30 PM: