The Oregon Sugar Company was a

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...

growing and processing operation created by the founders of the

Amalgamated Sugar Company The Amalgamated Sugar Company is an American sugar beet-refining company run on a cooperative basis. It was founded in 1897 in Ogden, Utah, and is now located in Nampa, Idaho. The company markets its sugar under the White Satin brand. Founding ...

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

. The company was incorporated February 12, 1898, by David Eccles, Charles W. Nibley, and George Stoddard. A shareholder meeting was held on February 26, 1898 in

Baker City, Oregon Baker City is a city in and the county seat of Baker County, Oregon, United States. It was named after Edward D. Baker, Edward Dickinson Baker, the only U.S. Senator ever killed in military combat. The population was 10,099 at the time of the 20 ...

, and a factory was built in

La Grande, Oregon La Grande () is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Oregon, Union County, Oregon, United States. La Grande is Union County's largest city, with a population of 13,082 at the time of the 2010 U.S. Census. The La Grande metro population ...

, thereafter. Eccles was president of the company and the board of directors included

Thomas R. Cutler Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

, Nibley, Stoddard and William Eccles. The factory was built by the E. H. Dyer Construction Company of

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, and was "almost identical" to the layout of Amalgamated's Ogden factory. The sugar beet refining factory in La Grande was built in 1898 and Oregon Sugar also founded the

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

Nibley, Oregon Nibley is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated historic community in Union County, Oregon, Union County, Oregon, United States, about 11 miles east of La Grande, Oregon, La Grande on Oregon Route 237 in the Grande Ronde Valley. Nibley was founde ...

, where

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

s raised sugar beets for the factory. By 1904, due to farmer reluctance, Oregon Sugar began farming sugar beets directly, after purchasing of land. The region was never very productive for sugar beets, and closing the factory was seriously considered in 1907. An outside expert was brought in who made a "very voluminous report", which confirmed the area was not likely to become more productive, even with changes. In 1908, the factory only operated on 28 days due to low yields, and a special committee was appointed to plan for the removal of the factory. The factory, "a mistake from the beginning and soon recognized as such", was shuttered in 1912. The only reason the factory was not removed sooner was the need for a new location for the machinery. An 1898 account of the sugar factory was published in the La Grande Daily Chronicle: :''The main building has 320 tons of structural steel and upwards of 1500 tons of machinery…The beets as they come from the shed are carried to the factory in a stream of water; they are then thoroughly washed and elevated to the upper part of the building, where they go through a slicing machine. After being sliced they go into a battery of cells, which are heated by steam, and the juice is extracted from the pulp by a process called "diffusion," which is exactly the same as extracting the essence of coffee from the berry or of tea from the leaves. The juice is then subjected to a chemical process, being mixed with lime…It is expected that 6,000,000 pounds of granulated sugar will be made this season…''

References

Sugar companies of the United States Agriculture in Oregon Defunct companies based in Oregon Food and drink companies established in 1898 Food and drink companies disestablished in 1912 1898 establishments in Oregon 1912 disestablishments in Oregon American companies established in 1898 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Oregon {{LDS-stub