Utah-Idaho Sugar Company

Since sugar was primarily an imported product in the late 19th century, from areas that cultivate sugar cane and sugar beets, there was support in the United States to produce it internally and prevent the more than $500 million annually that was paid out for imports. Sugar beet processing was attempted in 1830 near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but the first successful factory was E. H. Dyer's 1879 Standard Sugar Refining Company factory in Alvarado, California. James Wilson, the United States Secretary of Agriculture in 1898, reported that 150,000 copies of an 1897 USDA farmers' bulletin on sugar beets had been distributed and "the demand appears to be unabated." Sugar beets were cultivated in Michigan north of Detroit, among other areas. ==Formation of Utah Sugar==

By 1888, Arthur Stayner and Elias Morris from the failed Deseret Manufacturing Company convinced The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apostle Wilford Woodruff, and the church, that sugar beets and processing would be a good enterprise. Thomas R. Cutler conducted research in France and Germany, The capital was $15,000, with Elias Morris as company president. Morris had helped with the 1850s attempt at sugar beet manufacturing. Also in that year, the McKinley Tariff (also known as the 1890 Dingley Tariff or the Sugar Bounty Act) gave a sugar bounty, replacing a tariff, which "unwittingly" gave a substantial economic boost to sugar beet refining. This gave a payment of two cents per pound of sugar manufactured in the United States, as well as a penny per pound from the Utah government. This bounty was repealed in 1894 and replaced with a tax in 1897 by the Dingley Act of 1897. The factory was originally expected to be built for $300,000; it was recapitalized to $1 million on October 9, 1890. The American Sugar Refining Company retained shares in the company through 1911, when it was investigated by the United States House of Representatives. In 1914, Charles W. Nibley, who was the presiding bishop of the LDS church, bought all of the American Sugar's shares, becoming the largest shareholder. Nibley became the general manager in 1917. ==Early expansion==

A Springville factory was built in 1899, following failed attempts by the Utah Sugar Beet Growers' Society of Springville in 1896 and the American Beet Sugar Construction Company (who built early sugar beet factories in Nebraska and the American Beet Sugar Company factory in Oxnard, California). In 1900, a cutting factory was installed in Mapleton, Utah, with a pipe running to the Springville factory. An additional cutting factory and pipeline followed in 1901, in Provo. A factory was built in Garland, Utah to support the farms and Utah Sugar irrigation interests in the Bear River Valley. Utah Sugar negotiated with the Oregon Short Line to construct a railroad from Corinne north to Garland, which was completed in 1903. The sugar beet factory was completed in 1903 by William Garland, with machinery shipped on the new rail line. In the first season, the factory processed 18,900 tons of sugar beets into 1523 tons of sugar. By 1906, it processed 84,000 tons of sugar into 10,350 tons of sugar. By the 1960s, the Garland factory was processing 300,000 tons of sugar beets into 45,000 tons of sugar. Utah Sugar's water rights, dams, hydroelectric plant, and transmission lines were purchased by Utah Power & Light Company in December 1912 for $1.75 million. Utah Sugar purchased the canals on both sides of the Bear River in 1920 and controlled them at least through the 1960s. Later a cutting station in Spanish Fork was converted into a factory and an additional factory was built in West Jordan in 1916. These are discussed below. The cutting stations were abandoned between 1913 and 1924, due to corrosion and leaks of the pipeline, complaints from farmers due to the location of the pipe on their land, freezing weather, and "deterioration of juice in transit". ==Idaho==

Around 1901–1903, Utah Sugar discussed production in Idaho with the Great Western Sugar Company in Colorado. but the state auditor refused to pay it, likely because it would be financing the Sugar Trust. "Idaho's most brilliant lawyer", William Borah, represented the company in suing for the then-$29,000 due, but it was deemed unconstitutional, so the company never received the $51,347 that would have been due to them. In anticipation of building another plant in eastern Idaho, the Fremont County Sugar Company was organized in August 1903. It was backed by the same investors as Idaho Sugar: Smith, Havemeyer, and others, with Smith as the president and Young as attorney. A cornerstone was laid in a new location called Sugar City on December 8, 1903, five miles (8 km) northeast of Rexburg and thirty miles northeast of Idaho Falls. The governor, John T. Morrison, attended the ceremony. While the company raised $750,000, this was extended to $1 million due to a cutting factory at Parker. The Oregon Short Line was connected via spur to Sugar City. The first harvest yielded 33,272 tons from , producing 3126 tons of sugar. In early years the factory had a labor shortage, leading to a local community of Nikkei—Japanese migrants and their descendants. The Snake River Valley Sugar Company was a rival company presided by D. H. Biethan, a Utah egg merchant. With $700,000 in capital stock and based in Blackfoot, Idaho and the surrounding Bingham County, the stockholders were C. F. Hotchkiss from the East Coast, Blackfoot ranchers and businessmen, and European investors. They built a factory in Blackfoot with second-hand French machinery originally used in a factory in Binghamton, New York. The factory was completed November 1904 by Kilby Manufacturing Company from Cleveland, Ohio, using their experience building plants in Windsor, Colorado and Eaton, Colorado. The superintendent of the new plant was Henry Vallez, who had been chief chemist at the Utah Sugar plant in Lehi. In the first season, the factory processed a paltry 13,185 tons of beets, into 1528 tons of sugar. After Thomas R. Cutler and Utah Sugar threatened to build a competing factory in Blackfoot, Hotchkiss and the owners sold out to Idaho Sugar and Fremont County Sugar shortly after the first season. The factory was closed for one season, 1910, due to blight. Idaho Sugar and Fremont County Sugar were merged into The Idaho Sugar Company on May 2, 1905, with a $3 million in capitalization. The company officers included Joseph F. Smith as president, Thomas R. Cutler as vice president. The company bought Snake River Valley Sugar shortly after, and the company capital was raised to $5 million. In the 1906 season, the three factories processed 200,000 tons of sugar beets into 23,500 tons of sugar, with $300,000 in net profits. Because of a competitor (W. D. Hoover of the Eaton, Colorado factory) being interested in Western Idaho, the Western Idaho Sugar Company was organized on June 10, 1905 with $2 million in capital. Stockholders and officers were similar to the other organizations: Havemeyer owned half of the shares, Smith was company president. Charles W. Nibley and George Stoddard owned a combined 14% of the company, apparently due to their factory and operation at La Grande, Oregon and Nibley, Oregon. The company and principal factory were to be located in Nampa, with a second factory in Payette. Because of an unknown blight, the Payette factory was deferred, and sugar beets grown near Payette would be delivered to the Nampa factory. The Nampa factory was built by September 1906 and was quickly processing up to 718 tons of beets in a day- well over the 600-ton design of the factory. However, the sugar beet blight was reducing the yields by 1909, and the plant was closed in 1910. The equipment was then moved to Spanish Fork, Utah in 1916. Discussions began in 1906 to merge the Idaho and Utah companies. The Utah Sugar Company, The Idaho Sugar Company, and the Western Idaho Sugar Company were merged into the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company on July 3, 1907 with approval of Havemeyer and the American Sugar Refining Company. At the time, this was the largest company in Utah and Idaho. This was done to make gaining credit from banks easier, improve efficiency by reducing redundant equipment and staff, and it would remove criticisms of favoritism between stockholders of the companies (even though the management was nearly identical between them). The Western Idaho Sugar Company, with more modern equipment and having had a strong 1906 season, received a 25% premium on the new stock to alleviate stockholder complaints of being undervalued. The operating capital was $13 million, with the LDS church holding approximately $500,000. Other Idaho plants were built or acquired; a factory in Shelley was built in 1917. In 1924 the 1919 Rigby, Idaho factory built by the Beet Growers Sugar Company, a farmers co-op, was purchased. Factories were closed and centralized: the Rigby plant was closed in 1939 and converted into a sugar storage facility, the Shelley plant was closed in 1943, and the Sugar City plant closed in 1947. Finally, the Blackfoot factory was closed in 1948 and converted into a storage warehouse. The Lincoln plant was upgraded, allowing it to process 4000 tons per day by the 1960s (versus 600 tons when it was built). ==Central and Southern Utah==

vacuum pump at the Garland factory Production in Central and Southern Utah was wished for as early as 1878. By 1898, locals voted to build a plant in the area. By 1900 they agreed to build the plant in Gunnison, with of pipe to support cutting stations. The locals tried to raise $700,000 for this factory. Thomas R. Cutler and Utah Sugar, realizing the locals were going to hire an outside firm to construct their factory, organized Utah Sugar to do so instead. Utah Sugar paid the freight costs for sugar beets to be shipped to their Lehi factory, then promised to build a factory if were pledged by 1906. The San Pete and Sevier Sugar Company was incorporated with $1 million in capital on August 28, 1905. Officers and stockholders were similar to the Utah Sugar and Idaho Sugar companies. The company planned to construct a factory in Moroni, but drought, blight, and politics with farmers located in the more distant Sevier County caused the plans to be dropped. By 1909, plans for moving the Nampa, Idaho factory to Central Utah were coming together. Pledges in stock and supported land led to a site being developed near Elsinore. Contracts for were secured by November 1910, so a factory was completed by October 1911 by Dyer, using the Nampa equipment. The first year was very successful with 23,500 tons of sugar produced, but an ongoing issue with the sugar beet blight caused yield to fall. The factory was closed in 1929 and dismantled in the early 1940s. A plant in Payson was completed in October 1913, following the completion of the Strawberry Valley Reclamation Project in 1912. By 1915, the biggest year for the factory, were planted, yielding 36,915 tons of sugar beets, which were processed into 7722 tons of sugar. Because of low yields, the plant was closed in 1926 and dismantled in 1940; harvests were processed in the Lehi and Spanish Fork factories. These two factories were open for a combined 29 years and produced more than 300 million pounds of sugar, earning $10 million for the local farmers. ==World War I era expansion==

The Layton Sugar Company was founded in 1915, with partial funding from Utah-Idaho Sugar and Amalgamated Sugar. A factory was built in Layton, Utah. U-I bought Amalgamated's share in 1916, sold all their Layton Sugar interests in 1925, but bought the company in 1959. Oregon-Utah Sugar Company After business trips to determine the feasibility of Oregon for sugar beets was performed by Charles W. Nibley, his son Alexander Nibley, Frank S. Bramwell (former Amalgamated Sugar employee, LDS leader in Oregon), and Joseph S. Smith, Charles Nibley hunted for funding. To help finance the organization, Alexander Nibley contacted George Sanders, a Mormon bishop and businessman in Grants Pass, Oregon. On September 24, 1915, the Oregon-Utah Sugar Company was formed between Charles Nibley, Alexander Nibley, and George Sanders. Sanders owned the Rogue River Public Service Company, Southern Oregon Construction Company, and Utah-Idaho Realty Company, and backed a $500,000 bond for the new sugar company. U-I went on an aggressive anticompetitive campaign (including spreading rumors, leading to U-I's investigation by the FTC) against Gunnison Valley Sugar Company. In 1920, the William Wrigley Jr. Company purchased the factory to supply their chewing gum production. Knowing that buyers and speculators would pay well over this rate, the Utah-Idaho company asked Reed Smoot, a high-ranking church leader and United States Senator, if they would be prosecuted for selling above the ceiling. Because of the confidence of attorneys D. N. Straup and Joel Nibley (son of Charles W. Nibley It was around this time that tides of public favor in Utah turned against the company, due in part to price increases for sugar in Utah. In the end, over thirty indictments were filed against the company, including 10 in Idaho and 13 in Utah. A Supreme Court ruling on February 28, 1921, issued by Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, declared the Lever Act was unconstitutional, due to its ambiguous and vague language. U-I appealed the case with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in 1924, and the court ordered U-I to submit a "condensed narrative" of the FTC hearings. A 1433-page summary was filed in early 1925, but the case didn't convene until May 1927. The court overturned the FTC decision on October 21, 1927, as the manufacturing of sugar did not occur across state lines. Strike The Lehi employees went on strike on October 18, 1921, due to long working hours (12 hours per day) and low pay. Local businessmen agreed with the workers, recommending an eight-hour day be granted. The Lehi mayor and Lehi plant superintendent told the workers there would be no change to working hours, and gave an ultimatum: if the employees did not return to work the following day, the factory would be closed for the season, with sugar beets processed at other factories. The factory was reopened on October 23, with Thomas R. Cutler reaching a compromise with the workers: a change to eight-hour shifts, but no increase in hourly pay. ==The Great Depression==

During The Great Depression, U-I borrowed heavily from the LDS church, and both local and East Coast banks. They mortgaged company-owned farms to back many loans. They also significantly underpaid farmers for raw sugar beets, with a promise to pay in full when money was available. U-I sold their Raymond, Alberta plant to the British Columbia Sugar Refining Company, which gave the company an immediate $2.3 million in cash. A subsidiary of the company was created in 1932, called the Sugar Beet Credit Corporation. Willard T. Cannon, vice president and general manager of U-I, was president of the subsidiary. Using $1.25 million in funds advanced by the Federal Intermediate Credit Bank (through the Agricultural Credit Act), they gave farmers loans of up to $20 per acre with their crops as security. In 1933, 4039 farmers received loans totaling $644,453. In 1934, 3026 farmers received $398,132 in loans. This continued until the finance company was closed in 1938, and was dissolved on June 29, 1940. In 1938, U-I Sugar began marketing directly to the consumer. Instead of selling exclusively in hundredweight bags, they marketed "attractive 5- and 10-pound bags suitable to the needs of modern housewives". ==Quotas==

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 was modified on May 9, 1934 with the Jones-Costigan Amendment, also known as the Sugar Act of 1933. This set quotas for sugar production, set "processing tax" on sugar, and allotted manufacturing outputs. U-I was allotted 143,900 tons in 1934, well below the 170,000 tons produced in 1933. While volumes were down, due to a large glut of sugar, the "average income in the beet industry from 1934 to 1936 was 20 percent higher than the average income during the period 1925 to 1934." While the company was in better shape by 1935 than it had been in 20 years, interest rates were also low. The company again reduced the par value of the stock in 1935, leaving a $2.4 million credit. They also called $3 million in bonds and issued $3.5 million in new bonds. The LDS church took $500,000 of bonds, and $1.45 million in preferred stock (with a 7% interest rate) was called and reissued stock at 6%. The stock was issued in October 1935, and the bonds were sold in March 1936. The LDS church bought $2 million of the stock issuance. Because of this financial wrangling, the company issued a 5-cent dividend on their common stock- the first in 11 years. The company argued that 1933–1952 was a difficult period due to the sugar production quota being decided while U-I was in the midst of the curly top blight, making the quota excessively low. Quotas were maintained through 1974, being rewritten in 1937 and 1948, with the extensions to the acts meaning it ultimately expired at the end of 1974. Because of this, U-I felt it impacted them with an unfairly low production quota. Factories were kept closed and only opened if they could run at full capacity (and at a low production price). Lower-volume plants were closed, as farmers could transport large volumes of sugar beets on highways now rather than by horse to the rail lines. The Sugar Act of 1933 continued to be renewed through the early 1980s. However, high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners changed the type of sugar being consumed. ==World War II==

Severe labor shortages in World War II led to worries of a food shortage. The government instituted the Food for Freedom campaign. During times of high labor needs, U-I recruited schoolchildren, volunteers, "imported labor". Thinning beets is a more labor-intensive process. During that time, governors, politicians, members of the local school boards, as well as the civic groups: firemen, police officers, and chamber of commerce. The LDS church exerted its members to contribute heavily, and they did, as well as bankers, merchants, clears, and any others who could help. In 1942, approximately 10,000 Japanese Americans were relocated and interned from the Pacific states. Some of these people were employed as seasonal agricultural laborers and allowed to leave internment centers in Hunt/Minidoka, Idaho, Topaz, Utah, and Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Internment centers supplied 3,500 of these laborers who worked for U-I. The interned Japanese Americans also provided seasonal labor in 1943 and 1944; all the labor was paid at prevailing wages. Temporary labor was also provided by the Bracero Program, 700 in 1944, 1100 in 1945 in Utah. German and Italian war prisoners were also "apt and willing workers", 500 in 1944 and 2000 in 1945 in Utah. ==Sugar beet blight and decline in the industry==

After the World War I overexpansion and antitrust dealings, the sugar beet industry suffered further due to The Great Depression and because of difficulties with the beet leafhopper. The beet curly top virus infection was also called blight. The first blight was seen in Lehi in 1897, when the harvest of sugar beets dropped by 58% from the previous year, and area yield dropped by 54%. Blights were also experienced in 1900 and 1905; the leafhopper and resulting blight was identified in 1905 at by E. D. Ball, a professor of entomology at Utah State Agricultural College. While the blights began occurring in isolated years in most areas, this wasn't the case in Nampa, Idaho. The blight began in 1906 and continued through 1910, reducing area yield to 12% of the break-even amount. The worst period of blight occurred beginning in 1919 and continued through 1934. Overall production was substantially decreased in these years; 1924 saw 50,000 fewer tons of sugar produced than the previous year. Factory closures Because of the severe blights in Washington State, the Union Gap and Sunnyside factories were closed in 1919 and never reopened. The Toppenish plant only opened for short periods. Ultimately, 22 of the sugar factories in the Western United States were closed due to the blight, and the remaining 21 factories were periodically shuttered, with an aggregate production under 50% of their stated capacity. This included ten U-I factories closed or moved due to blight: • Lehi, Utah, closed in 1924 and was dismantled. • Nampa, Idaho, closed in 1910 and moved to Spanish Fork. • Elsinore, Utah, was closed in 1928 and dismantled. • Payson, Utah, was closed in 1924 and dismantled. • Moroni, Utah, was closed in 1925 and moved to Toppenish, Washington. • Delta, Utah, was closed in 1924 and moved to Belle Fourche, South Dakota. • Union Gap, Washington was closed in 1918 and moved to Chinook, Montana. • Rigby, Idaho, was closed in 1924, used briefly in 1930, then dismantled. • Toppenish, Washington was closed in 1923 and moved to Bellingham, Washington in 1924. It operated from 1925 to 1938, with the best profit was in 1933, the worst year of The Great Depression. It was considered only marginally successful. The equipment was sold to Remolachas y Azucareras del Uruguay, Sociedad Anonima, and was installed at Esta Montes, Uruguay. • Sunnyside, Washington was closed in 1919 and moved to Raymond, Alberta, Canada. New factories The Chinook, Montana factory location was chosen due to the Great Northern railway, German immigrants who "knew how to work" and had pre-immigration experience with beets. The Union Gap factory was moved and set up by James J. Burke and Company in time for the 1925 season. The yields and areas were good, with in 1940 and 211,840 tons of sugar beets processed. The Lynch-Cannon Engineering Company built the Raymond, Alberta, Canada plant in time for the 1925 season. It was located in the area due to sugar beet farmers who had moved north from Utah and Idaho, customs-free importation of machinery, and slightly higher prices for the sale of refined sugar. The factory was held by the Canadian Sugar Factories, Limited subsidiary of U-I. By 1930, were producing 127,000 tons of beets, which was "basically profitable", but had issues with labor supply and climate. Since the Great Basin Sugar Company had "poached" territory from U-I with their Delta, Utah plant, purchased by U-I in 1920, the company wanted to retaliate with a plant in their territory, which led to the Belle Fourche, South Dakota plant. The specific location was chosen due to the nearby Orman Dam and Reservoir land reclamation project, at the urging of the Associated Commercial Clubs of the Black Hills, who had pledged . The North Western Railroad agreed to build an spur. Area farmers had already been growing at high yields, shipping the sugar beets to the Great Western Sugar Company plant in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. U-I arranged to move the Delta plant to Belle Fourche, building the new factory themselves. The Belle Fourche plant was profitable from 1927 to 1950 but lost money from 1951 to 1960. Management made aggressive plans to try to save the company. In 1962, farmers expanded east of the Missouri River, gaining . The yields were disappointing, and the sugar content was low. At this time, research into the cost-benefit of leaving the factory was on the table. In 1964, the company retracted significantly and still lost money- $350,000. Ultimately, the factory didn't look good financially. The factory closed and was dismantled in 1965. ==Blight-resistant beets==

Since most sugar beet seeds came from Europe, the Americans asked their suppliers to develop blight-resistant beet lines. Blight was not a problem in Europe, so there was little enthusiasm. In addition, the suppliers didn't believe a resistant variety could be produced. The Spreckels Sugar Company of Spreckels, California began experimenting with blight-resistant plants in 1919, but did not develop a commercial variety by 1928. The U.S. Department of Agriculture developed a sugar beet variety in the late 1928s, known as "U.S. No. 1." Using a newly discovered overwintering technique for growing sugar beets for seed by the USDA and the New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station, seed production plots were grown in 1930 in New Mexico, Hemet, California, and St. George, Utah. Seven died, another seven were injured, and the factory sustained $5 million in damage. ==Seed research==

By the 1940s, progress was being made toward mechanically separating multigerm seed into segmented seed, allowing a reduction in labor-intensive agricultural thinning. The first commercial monogerm sugar beet resistant to the Curly Top blight was launched in 1955 by U-I, and by 1958 it was in large-scale production. ==Mechanization==

Partially in response to the labor shortages experienced during World War II, large efforts were made to mechanize the thinning, harvesting, and processing of sugar beets. Mechanical cross-blocking thinners were used starting in 1941, precision seed planting equipment was used starting in 1944, and more efficient mechanized harvesters were used starting in 1943, based on a "variable-cut topping mechanism" developed by J. B. Powers at the California Experiment Station of University of California, Davis, which was shared with manufacturers in a public domain manner. In 1946, 12% of the crop was harvested mechanically; by 1950, approximately 66% was mechanically harvested. This mechanization helped U-I stay productive compared to imported sugar. In 1960, U-I produced 325,000 tons of sugar. ==Legacy and divestment of sugar beet division==

The Layton, Utah plant was closed in 1959, and then sold in 1965 or 1966. A 1963 article in Barron's said "In the early years of Utah-Idaho, church ownership hampered the kind of hard dealing necessary in the trade. Today, however, such considerations are inconsequential." Utah-Idaho Sugar Company changed its name to simply "U and I" in 1975. By this time, Utah-Idaho had moved into potato production. It put its four remaining sugar factories for sale in November 1978,{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z0FYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wfYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1356%2C4400100 ==U&I Sugar Corporation==

The corporation is now (2011) concentrated on Brazilian sugar-owning mills in Brazil and cane fields. U&I has purchased two logistic companies based in Sao Paulo and a sales marketing company in the United Kingdom, formally Commodity Brokers Europe Ltd. In the 21st century, U&I Sugar Corporation is headed by Ronald T Kemp, the current president, based in London, England. Ronald Thomas Kemp, the president of U&I Sugar Corporation, now controls the process from growing to end buyer sales and is continuing to purchase mills in Brazil. The company now concentrates on selling cane sugar to the end buyer and does not trade on international market platforms, thereby ensuring the best possible price for each mt produced. In 2010 U&I moved into direct sales, and the expansion program was initiated at www.uandisugar.com. ==See also==