Nothing daunted, Mr. Dyer grappled with the problem once more and succeeded in floating a new corporation, the Pacific Coast Sugar company, with $1,000,000 capital and headed by John L. Howard as president. In 1887 and 1888 this company built the middle part of the present factory at Alvarado, where it installed most of the machinery from the old plant, together with some new apparatus. The campaign of 1888 was barren of results and in March of the following year the Pacific Coast Sugar company sold its property to a new concern, the Alameda Sugar company, whose first president was M. H. Hecht. In 1890 two additions to the factory were built, one at each end.
From small beginnings, this Alvarado enterprise, the pioneer of American success in the production of sugar from beets, continued its yearly operations from 1879 until 1914, with the exception of the year following the boiler explosion. In 1889 the output was 872 tons, in 1911 it reached 9966 tons. At the beginning of 1914, sugar prices were low and tariff prospects very discouraging. Under such conditions, the owners of the plant did not believe that they could make sugar at a profit, and the factory remained closed during that season. The sharp advance in sugar values, due to the war in Europe, completely changed matters; beets were planted and 6363 tons of sugar were produced in 1915.
For a long time Mr. Dyer was looked upon as an enthusiast and a dreamer whose sincerity was unquestioned, but whose energies were misdirected. In the midst of the gloomy forebodings of those around him, he held tenaciously to his purpose and devoted his brains and his money to the solution of the problem confronting him. That the beet-sugar industry of the United States proved a success when it did is due to his unfailing courage and persistent effort.
A year before the Alvarado factory was built, a number of moneyed men of Sacramento, head by Julius Wetzlar, then president of the Capital savings bank, conceived the idea of starting a beet-sugar plant there. After some experimenting with local beets, the Sacramento Valley Sugar company was organized and machinery for a seventy-ton plant was ordered from Germany. Construction was delayed for a year, and thus the Sacramentans lost the honor of being the first in the field. In 1871 they built a factory at Brighton, six miles east of Sacramento, near the American river. An expert was brought out from Germany and work was begun on November 18th. The first diffusion battery used in the United States was employed in the extraction of sugar from the beets. The season of 1871 gave good results, but the following year the crop suffered greatly from the ravages of the army worm. The campaign of 1873 opened on August 5th, lasting until November 22nd. The yield of beets was ten tons per acre, the average sugar content 8 per cent and the total output 982,120 pounds of sugar, including all grades.
This enterprise struggled along until 1875, in spite of troubles from drought, army worm, grasshoppers and last, but not least, lack of experience. The plant was then closed and the equipment put up for sale. Briefly, it may be said that at the outset very poor sugar was turned out, and later, when the quality was improved, the cost of manufacture was found to be greater than what the sugar would bring. The final outcome was that the stockholders lost nearly all the money they had invested.
About 1874,[32] the California Sugar Manufacturing company was formed. Sixty-eight acres of land at Isleton were bought, a factory structure of brick was erected and machinery installed, the total expenditure being about $250,000. Sugar of good quality was made, but the financial result was disastrous. Isleton land was ill suited to beet culture, as when the Sacramento river was high the beet fields were covered with water. One authority states that the original idea was to manufacture sugar from watermelons, and when it was found that this was not practicable, attention was turned to beets.
In 1876 numerous mechanics’ liens were filed against the company. Later, the factory was leased to H. M. Ames of Oakland, who operated it during the campaign of 1880. Two years afterward the entire plant was sold at sheriff’s sale for $10,000. The land and building were purchased by P. H. Gardiner of Isleton and the machinery went to a San Francisco junk dealer. This venture is said to have caused financial distress to many of the farmers in the vicinity.
In 1888, Claus Spreckels, so long a prominent figure in the sugar world, established a beet factory at Watsonville, Santa Cruz county, in the rich Pajaro valley. At first its capacity was 300 tons of beets per day, and, the result of the operations being favorable, this was increased from time to time until it reached 1000 tons of beets per day. The Watsonville factory developed into the largest beet plant in America and remained so until 1898, in which year Mr. Spreckels erected a modern 3000-ton plant at Salinas, fifteen miles distant. Since then the new factory has sliced all of the beets grown in that territory and the old one has been dismantled. The capacity of the Salinas plant now is greater than that of any other beet factory in the United States, being 4000 tons per day.
The Oxnard brothers, Henry T., Benjamin, James G. and Robert, with J. G. Hamilton, W. Bayard Cutting and R. Fulton Cutting, organized the Oxnard Beet Sugar company in 1889, and in December of that year broke ground for a beet-sugar factory of 350 tons slicing capacity at Grand Island, Nebraska. In 1891 they built two more, one at Norfolk, Nebraska, and one at Chino, California, both of the same size as the Grand Island plant. The machinery for the first two factories was bought in France and that for the last one came from Germany. Toward the end of 1897, construction at Oxnard was begun, and in 1899 a consolidation of all these factories was effected under the corporate title of the American Beet Sugar company.