Notes

The particular Owosso Sugar Company - A History
No sooner had Saginaw's lumber tycoon, Wellington R. Burt, celebrated his 70th bday on August dua puluh enam, 1901 than performed he set out and about to employ a part of his timber wealth in the particular awakening beet glucose industry.

The rule of real estate agents almost everywhere is "location, location, location. " Nevertheless, in the organization world in standard it should get, "timing, timing, time. " Wellington Burt's timing so far as his curiosity about sugar was involved, was poor.

Like others who acquired filled their days in the once active but now moribund timber industry, he got time in the palms and money in the bank. At first, also simply because had others, he devoted some yrs to politics. He previously served a name in the condition senate (1893-1894) in that case sought a Circumstance. S. Congressional seats but had typically the ill fortune in order to run being a Liberal in 1900, the year the Republican star was increasing. Ranked as one of America's wealthiest men, Burt toss about achievable investment ideas and after that homed in within the sugars industry. His set his eyes on Owosso, Michigan, a new village situated several thirty miles southwest of Saginaw where several holdovers through the lumber sector resided in upper end arrayed along Washington Avenue. Among Owosso's many attributes was your influence of Joseph Kohn, a sugarbeet technologist residing throughout Bay City, Michigan. Kohn presided more than the Michigan Chemical Company which got been put throughout place to buy and then process molasses generated by that city's growing variety of sugar beet production facilities. His success from Michigan Chemical motivated investors to pull close when they spoke of making an investment in beet sugars factories.

For Kohn it was basic, the more sugars beet factories the more molasses intended for Michigan Chemical, which often could be unadulterated into alcohol, a circumstance that created enthusiasm for typically the construction of one other factory. Fat along with profits, Michigan Substance as well as its parent, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, wanted to create a manufacturer in Owosso on its own and even didn't need typically the interference of one more millionaire with time on his arms and money inside his pocket. Wellington R. Burt had been not invited in order to join in some sort of venture with The state of michigan Chemical and their ambitions to take his / her own languished behind a curtain regarding international events

The usa had agreed upon the final outcome of the particular Spanish-American War to reduce the significance duty on Philippine sugar 75 per cent of the basic rate and to be able to allow the échange of sugar coming from Puerto Rico, a U. S. possession, entirely free associated with duty. The Israel had the additional advantage of shipping up to 300, 000 tons duty free and Congress was dithering together with proposed legislation that if passed, would approve a treaty of reciprocity using Cuba. The agreement would grant of which country a 20 percent tariff helpful.

The nation's magazines devoted considerable room for the plan, dampening the spirits associated with those who in first shown significantly excitement about Burt's proposed factory. He could find few some others to join your pet inside a venture within Owosso, although he or she pledged $200, 000 of his individual fortune and believed others had fell another $50, 500 in stock. He had convinced farmers to sign back up to grow sugarbeets on three thousands of acres and been infected with with the skilled firm of Fuehrman and Hapke to be able to begin construction if it fell apart because investors had not come out with the equilibrium of the required investment - about $600, 000.

The state of michigan Chemical Company anxiously waited in the wings when additional investors been unsuccessful to materialize. Elsewhere, excitement for blumenbeet sugar factories hardly slowed. Sixteen were built in the us between 1900 in addition to 1902, eight throughout Michigan. Burt's focus turned to Alma, Michigan where this individual met more good results by combining their money and talents with those of Aimee Wright, another Saginaw industrialist.

Owosso, in 1902, was since good a prospect for any beet factory every town inside Michigan, perhaps better. It had rail lines, established industry, a managerial class in addition to trained workers within addition to an outstanding farming region. Burt stepped aside, letting the project in order to die stillborn. Fuehrman and Hapke proceeded to construct typically the Sebewaing factory inside the next year, creating one involving the most productive beet factories from the era. Michigan Substance emerged from the shadows and selected up the reins.

Owosso was residence to two family members with notable successes in American governmental policies. Both would play various roles in the establishment of some sort of beet sugar manufacturer in Owosso. The particular Bentley family, headed by Alvin The bentley, whose grandson, furthermore named Alvin, attained fame at perfect personal expense throughout 1954 when while a junior Congressman, he became the particular most seriously hurt of five subjects of the armed assault on Congress although it is at treatment. Four Puerto Rican terrorists discharged thirty rounds in the visitor's gallery with the Circumstance. S. House associated with Representatives for the flooring of that step while the Representatives were debating an immigration bill.

The Dewey family had been engaged in His party politics since the party's formation in nearby Jackson, Michigan within 1854. In Owosso, in accordance with tradition, a major representative of the particular political party in that case in power kept the postmaster's place. Edmund O. Dewey, uncle to Thomas Edmund Dewey, another New York chief of the servants and twice a great unsuccessful candidate with regard to the U. T. presidency, held that will position beginning with the presidency of William McKinley and ending with the obama administration of Woodrow Wilson. His brother George, the father associated with Thomas Edmund Dewey, secured the scheduled appointment in 1921.

Edmund Dewey, in 1902, revived Wellington Burt's plan for a beet sugar factory in Owosso. He organized the purchase associated with a suitable 40-acre site at the west end of Oliver Street, raised $10, 000 and urged the local board of committee to a connection issue sufficient to be able to meet the cost of typically the land. The county denied the bond, causing the idea to fail intended for a second moment and for the same reason : a lack of enthusiasm.

Joseph Kohn stepped forward and within doing so introduced into Michigan's energized sugar industry a single the nation's wealthiest families, the Pitcairn group of Pittsburgh, Pa. The Pitcairn loved ones controlled the Pittsburg Plate Glass Service (today known seeing that PPG Industries) headquartered in Pittsburg, Missouri. The glass company had all but ended America's dependence on The european countries for large sheets of glass suitable for storefronts, displays and mirrors. During the opening days of the 20th centuries, the corporation produced 20-million square feet of a glass annually.

In looking for an origin of potash because of its glassworks, Maryland Plate Glass flipped to Kohn who else made an effort to be able to extract it by beet sugar molasses and instead discovered he could gain assured profits by converting molasses directly into alcohol. He experienced also served typically the German-American Sugar Company (later named Monitor Sugar Company) seeing that a consultant and before that organised a similar place with Kilby Producing who had been much involved in turnkey blumenbeet sugar factory construction projects. Kohn's Gulf City distillery, due to the huge amount of molasses rising from three glucose factories and a lot more promised from the German-American Sugar Company's stock then under building, was turning above substantial profits to be able to Pittsburgh Plate Cup.

John Pitcairn found America's shores 1st as five-year older immigrant brought to The usa by his moms and dads John and Agnes along with two sisters and a brother. Pitcairn accumulated your own fortune within railroads, coalmines, oil, and in the starting up in the Pittsburgh Platter Glass Company in partnership with David Ford. He was sixty-years old if Kohn drew their attention to the possible in Owosso and the failed work of first Wellington Burt, then Edmund Dewey to kind a beet sweets company.

Three's the particular charm for Owosso. On October twenty nine, 1902, the Owosso Sugar Company arrived into existence, capitalized at one thousand dollars. More as compared to 75 percent of the shares were owned by people of the Pitcairn family and close friends. John Pitcairn owned 62, 500 of the outstanding shares outright. A few of Owosso residents added their names to the aktionär list, including the aforementioned Alvin Bentley and the brothers Edmund and George Dewey. George Dewey's boy, Tom, the potential future presidential candidate, would likely one day invest school vacations employed in the new glucose company's packaging room.

The business presidency has been turned over in order to Charles W. Dark brown, the owner associated with newly minted a few, 600 shares involving stock. Brown has been also the president of Pittsburgh Platter Glass. Everyday monetary duties visited 36-year old Edward Pitcairn, one of Ruben Pitcairn's many nephews. Edward would, by 1910, become treasurer of Pittsburgh Platter Glass, a position he'd hold for the balance of his career. Carmen Smith, an attorney together with a long association with Charles Brown leafy, stemming from the period when the pair resided within Minneapolis, assumed obligation for the general management of the new firm. Throughout addition, he believed the title of Secretary-Treasurer. He had recently moved his wife Isabella plus three children, Margaret, Carmen, and Cedric to Bay Metropolis in which he served while the treasurer regarding Michigan Chemical Business. Joseph Kohn acknowledged the role involving general factory superintendent.

Educated in the Prague Institute of Technology, Kohn graduated inside 1883 with degrees in mechanical and chemical engineering. Right after his schooling, he was employed from Breitfeld-Danek of Prague and later acquired experience at a sugar factory throughout Moravia, an area inside what is right now the Czech Republic but was then the part of typically the Austrian-Hungary empire, plus also countless the evaporator designer, Hugo Jelenik. In Moravia, he caused Carl Steffen, the designer of the molasses desugarization process that will carries his brand. While employed by simply Kilby Manufacturing Firm, Kohn developed the Kilby standard manufacturing plant arrangement.

Kilby Manufacturing won contracts in order to construct two just one, 000-ton factories in Michigan; one from Owosso and one other at Menominee. The 2 would hold the particular record as the particular largest beet industrial facilities built in Michigan until a just one, 200-ton factory was built at Mount Pleasant in 1920. As well as the two one, 000-ton factories, Kilby had an order for a standard 600-ton factory for Eastern Tawas. It will be some sort of busy year with regard to Kilby who experienced also received purchases for three factories inside Colorado, one each and every for Fort Collins, Longmont, and Windsor with Fort Collins gaining the biggest factory built simply by Kilby-1, 200 lots a day cutting capacity. The value for the Owosso factory, at $675, 000, on a per ton of sugarbeets chopped up basis, was minimal at $675 in comparison $1, 197 with East Tawas and even $785 at Menominee. In fact, typically the Owosso factory are cheaper per ton of slice than virtually any factory built within Michigan.

The Owosso factory came to life on 12 , 9, 1903 minus the usual fanfare designated to new beet sugar factories which often included marching groups, parades, and much merriment followed by simply speaking opportunities with regard to local luminaries plus politicians. Inside a quiet fashion, Charles T. Brown, arrived from Pittsburgh and delivered with him since an honored visitor, James Wilson, the Secretary of Culture. He rose to national prominence whenever President William McKinley appointed him Admin of Agriculture in 1897. His stature was such that will presidents Roosevelt and even Taft retained him as secretary, in addition to it was just when in 1912 in a proceed to sweep Republican appointees from office, Woodrow Wilson concluded his tenure. He or she had served while Secretary of Cultivation from March some, 1897 to 03 3, 1913, the particular longest duration offered by any Us cabinet official.

After having a brief ceremony, Secretary Wilson pulled the whistle cord that will called forth the beets from the flumes. Unlike several of the blumenbeet factories built within Michigan, there seemed to be no central regional figure that experienced put his money and reputation about the line for the factory. The majority ownership was far away inside Pennsylvania, its police officers and guiding administration lived elsewhere, Gulf City in typically the case of Joseph Kohn and Carmen Smith and the particular environs of Maryland for Brown in addition to Pitcairn. It had been not necessarily unusual for absentee owners to overlook the obvious - type from farmers. When a lack of farmer interest made by itself known, it induced no palpitations found in the boardroom regarding Pittsburgh Plate Glass. After all, 20 years earlier John Pitcairn had forged a new American industry from the rubble of related but failed attempts when he wrestled home plate glass market away from Europeans in addition to developed one involving the world's biggest and most modern day factories of their kind.
Farmer apathy was a mild inconvenience, not a new crushing blow in order to someone who acquired turned the making of plate glass into an unique American industry. Typically the answer lay near at hand and Carmen Smith, his appointed emissary, acquired probed the options even while the factory walls reached toward the sky to be able to the amazement involving Owossians who had gathered on week-ends over the summer of 1903 to get in the breadth and dimensions from the industrial goliath gaining their midst. Clearly, the Pittsburgh Dish Glass people thought big. They believed even bigger as compared to the factory's footpath superintendents imagined, larger than had virtually any beet factory manager up until that will time. Not only were that they building a beet factory destined to become twice the dimensions of practically all the sweets factories in the particular United States, these were at the exact same time on the verge of creating the largest sugarbeet farm in the United States plus the largest single farm operation east with the Mississippi River.

Sth and west regarding Saginaw, Michigan set a vast marsh formed during the particular last ice age. The marsh adjoined the convergence associated with several large river systems that started to be the Saginaw Lake that then now flows 22 mls northward to Lake Huron. The 18 thousand acre marsh served as a great important stopover level and brooding floor for migrating waterfowl, ducks, geese, swans. It had been the biggest natural wildlife home in the United states Midwest. It had been protected by characteristics that made this unappealing to farmers - frequent flooding. But that improved when Harlan M. Smith, a Saginaw buggy manufacturer who else also speculated found in real estate, created a partnership with two attorneys Charles H. Camp in addition to George B. Brooks, to acquire and even then develop around 10, 000 quadrat of the marsh. Their efforts, comprising fifteen years, resulted in a large draining ditch that prolonged nearly two kilometers across the prairie, permitting those to convert 100s of acres regarding marsh into cultivated fields.

When Carmen Smith searched for a sizable tract in which to setup an exhibition sugarbeet farm whilst at the similar time assuring the Owosso factory might have all the beets it might want, this individual quickly targeted the particular Prairie Farm. Jones completed the buy on February twenty-two, 1903 and shortly, a steam-powered dust, a monster designed for digging into mucky earth, seemed to be soon barged straight down the Saginaw Water to the alpage. It bit straight into the earth in the front, forming a 20-foot substantial dike and developing a canal, which this used to transfer itself until acre-by acre, it stated land that experienced waited a 50 percent a million decades for the appearance with the mechanical behemoth.

Eventually, Owosso Sugar Company created thirty-six miles of dikes, some of them eighty toes wide at typically the bottom, forty at the top and twenty toes high. Others have been of lesser proportions but all created for the same goal - draining and then keeping the area dry. Roads crowned the tops associated with the dikes and the sides turned to be able to grass for employ as a sheep pasture. Half the land was exhausted via open abandons and half was drained with the aid of huge pumps that put their burden for the nearby Flint River. Once it had been dry, the reclaimed land was placed out much like a new giant checkerboard inside twelve lines associated with sixteen forty-acre packages. Almost overnight, for a capital outlay of $400, 000, Cruz transformed the Alpage Farm from the losing proposition directly into the largest blumenbeet sugar estate in Michigan, and most likely in the Usa States, or even typically the world - ten thousand acres. The brand new factory could today set aside be anxious about a sufficient offer of beets.

Owosso Sugar Company's Initial Campaign

The first operating campaign intended for the Owosso Sweets Company, as seemed to be customary with Kilby designed turnkey industries, achieved the confirmed slice rate involving 1, 000 a lot of sliced beets each twenty-four hours. Design contracts typically required that a new stock meet its guaranteed rate for a new specified time period, place by negotiation, from between one plus ten days and even usually occurred underneath the supervision of Kilby's engineers some days following the startup. The particular same engineers would certainly withdraw once the fresh owner signed the certificate of finalization, handing our factory more than to the carrier's management staff. Typically the slice rate in Owosso declined right after the factory reached the guaranteed rate most likely for the similar reasons slice costs in most new beet factories declined - inexperienced operators.

As the Prairie Plantation was yet inside of its infancy, that produced fewer beets than it would certainly in the following decades causing the processing period, referred to as a "campaign" by industry, in order to last only forty eight days, ending upon January 26, 1904. During its first run the new factory sliced an average of 542 tons, well brief of the planned 1, 000 lots per day. The 2nd campaign was days shorter but the slice rate nearly doubled, reaching 930 tons per working day for 43 days.

While the Owosso factory was underneath construction, the Lansing beet factory, constructed by Benjamin Boutell, a major entrepreneur in many Michigan beet sugar factories, and others 2 years before, suffered from a lack of managerial oversight. Diagnosed with cancer early within 1902, Boutell's wife, Amelia died upon November 27 at the age of 52 despite his / her best efforts to find a cure. Having zero heart for his / her business interests, he or she sold the Lansing factory to the particular Owosso Sugar Business.

Kohn and Smith now had a number of major operations: a couple of sugar factories, the Prairie Farm, and Bay City's Michigan Chemical Company below their control although one year earlier that they had the particular chemical company to sit on their as well as ideas. The Prairie Village employed 160 workers and 58 clubs of draft race horses and each of the two beet production facilities employed hundreds a lot more in addition to workers in the chemical factory and typically the Bay City headquarters. The two supervisors, each 45 yrs . old, were in frequent motion, visiting typically the properties, the company office in Pittsburgh, and attending industry conventions along with meeting with members associated with Congress and the Department of Culture. In 1910, Paul Kohn was the first to reckon the cost regarding this type of pace. He suffered a coronary heart attack and passed away at the age group of 52.

In the year earlier Kohn's death, 6, 500 Prairie Grind acres had already been diked and equipped with gravity draining and pumping systems and for typically the first time, grew a square kilometer of sugarbeets. Peppermint provided additional income (35, 000 lbs of peppermint olive oil in 1909) when cabbage followed within importance behind sugarbeets.

For the six years following Kohn's death, Carmen Jones continued on as ahead of, shouldering Kohn's tasks as well as his very own, until 1916 when he placed the 2 sugar factories within the supervision of Charles D. Bell who served as the factory manager from Alma before getting started with the Owosso personnel in 1907. Bell remained at Owosso for sixteen yrs, leaving only after Michigan Sugar Organization acquired the Owosso and Lansing production facilities in 1924 whereupon he returned to the family hacienda in Los Alamos, California where he promptly discovered oil and retired in wealth.

In 1920, with age 62, Carmen Smith, much want his friend in addition to associate, Joseph Kohn, succumbed suddenly in order to a heart attack while traveling home by coach from Chicago. With Carmen Smith exceeded a pioneering age. Joseph Kohn throughout 1910, Joseph Kilby in 1914, Ruben Pitcairn in 1916, and Carmen Jones in 1920 -- those who experienced lived the imagine building one of the world's greatest and most contemporary beet sugar industries and then per year it with the country's single biggest beet farm, had passed from your field. Sadly, what they acquired wrought may not previous.

According to Daniel Gutleben's history regarding the Michigan blumenbeet sugar industry (The Sugar Tramp -1954), Pittsburgh Plate A glass, likely concerned that Michigan's beet factories, built too smaller to compete with leading refineries created to procedure raw sugar imported in quantity, couldn't compete against the volume of duty-free glucose entering the nation. It opted to be able to sell both Owosso and Lansing production facilities to Michigan Sweets Company at a selling price reported in the press at $2, 1000, 000 plus favored stock. The Prairie Farm remained found in the hands involving John Pitcairn's future heirs.

Michigan Sugar Business operated Owosso for the next four years till diminishing interest for farmers combined using the flood involving imported sugar caused the factory to shut in 1928. Michigan Sugar lacked the chief advantage once held by the previous owners - typically the Prairie Farm as a result wasn't able to command maqui berry farmers to develop beets when other crops, corn and soybeans captivated favorable prices for less investment and even less work. It re-opened again for just one year in 1933, then shut lower but was kept inside hopeful readiness. Wish finally surrendered to be able to reality that the farmers would not go back. The factory plus buildings were sold in 1948. Proof that this eventual failure in the Owosso Sugar Business did not rest upon the shoulders of management lay inside the appointment of Owosso's secretary, Edward cullen Bostock, to the particular chairmanship from the plank of directors associated with Michigan Sugar Company.

Sources:

DENSLOW, William R, and TRUMAN, Harry S., ten, 000 Famous Freemasons from A to J Part One (in reference to Charles W. Brown career with Maryland Plate Glass Company)

MILLER, Ed, plus BEACH, Jean 3rd there’s r.., The Saginaw Hall of Fame, Printed by the Saginaw Legendary book, 2000. (In mention of the Wellington R. Burt)

GUTTLEBEN, Daniel, The Sugar Tramp - 1954 branded by Bay Metropolitan areas Duplicating Company, San Francisco, California

LA DIRECTION DU CUREUX, KEITH, Albee Township History, Saginaw, County, Michigan, Part V, Prairie Village.

BETZOLD, Michael, Detroit Free Press Publication, December 26, 1993, Utopia Revisited instructions an article explaining the history associated with the Prairie Village.

Copyright, 2009, Thomas Mahar - Almost all Rights Reserved

About the Author: Betty Mahar served like Executive Vice Us president of Monitor Sugars Company between 1984 and 1999 and even as President involving Gala Food Digesting, a sugar presentation company, from 1993-1998. He retired in 1999 and today devotes his free of charge time to posting about the record from the sugar market. He authored, Sweet Energy, The Story of Monitor Sugar Company in i b?rjan p? tv? get more info , and Michigan's Beet Sugar History (Newsbeet, Fall, 2006). Contact: Thomas Mahar Email-based

This blog offers a history for every from the 24 beet sugar factories constructed in Michigan commencing in 1898 in addition to ending in 1920.
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