Menominee, Michigan, located removed from the world’s monetary facilities 100 years in the past, a lot as it’s at present, however positioned itself instantly in the midst of one of many hottest enterprise booms of the early twentieth century – sugar. The small group that dared to plant a footprint in world commerce occupies a slivered level of land that dips into Lake Michigan at some extent so shut in proximity to Wisconsin that had a cartographer’s finger twitched at a vital second, Menominee could be in Wisconsin as a substitute of Michigan.
Menominee is bordered on the east by Green Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan, and on the south-west by the Menominee River. In 1903, many buyers within the beet sugar business had a timber background and had thus come to consider that the identical rivers that had as soon as delivered logs to sawmills in abundance may additionally serve the wants of a beet sugar manufacturing facility the place huge volumes of water are used for fluming beets into the manufacturing facility, washing them after which diffusing the sugar from them. A sugar manufacturing facility may simply put three million gallons of water to make use of each twenty-four hours. Barges can carry sugarbeets from the farm fields and freighters can carry merchandise to market. The presence of the Menominee River satisfied buyers that Menominee may compete with the nation’s sugar producers regardless of unfavourable feedback from naysayers who stated Menominee was too far north to efficiently develop sugarbeets.
The naysayers had some extent. Menominee, Michigan is an unlikely place to assemble a beet sugar manufacturing facility. Situated on the western finish of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the rising season is about forty days shorter than the prime beet rising areas within the state’s Lower Peninsula. The quick season can stop the ripening of beets which is able to then reduce sugar content material of immature beets sick ready for the stress of the milling course of. Severe frosts in early spring should not uncommon and are nearly all the time deadly to a crop of younger beets. Frosts can come early within the fall, too, which may make it not possible to reap a crop. A farmer stood to lose his whole crop both early within the rising season or close to the time of harvest after he had invested closely in bringing the sugarbeet crop to time period. Investors, nevertheless, in Menominee, as in lots of Michigan’s cities, tended to low cost enter from farmers earlier than constructing a manufacturing facility and would incessantly interpret exaggerated enthusiasm from a handful of growers as representing the broader farming group. Quite usually, as in Menominee’s case, as it might prove, the handful didn’t characterize the entire.
Official recognition by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1898 of the significance of the sugarbeet business sparked the development of beet sugar factories throughout the nation. One 12 months earlier the nation may boast solely ten beet sugar factories, 4 of which have been in California, one in Utah, two in Nebraska and three in New York. The development of seven sugarbeet factories in 1898 introduced into focus for the primary time the stirrings of a rush not not like the dot-com growth that blossomed almost 100 years later. The concept that sugar produced from sugarbeets may compete with sugar produced from sugarcane expanded right into a full-fledged growth by 1900 when the nationwide depend of sugarbeet factories stood at thirty-two in eleven states.
Nowhere was the blaze hotter than in Michigan the place 9 factories adopted the profitable begin up of a manufacturing facility in Essexville, Michigan, a suburb of Bay City. A burst of cyclonic enthusiasm brought about a mad scramble when buyers, constructors, bankers, and farmers mixed energies and abilities to convey to life eight factories in a single 12 months! They have been in Holland, Kalamazoo, Rochester, Benton Harbor, Alma, West Bay City, Caro, and a second manufacturing facility in Essexville. Despite the paucity of manufacturing facility constructors and the engineers to function them, fourteen further factories rose on the outskirts of Michigan cities throughout the subsequent six years, certainly one of which appeared in Menominee in 1903.
In Menominee, a gaggle of buyers undeterred by the pure disadvantages and buoyed by encouragement from influential buyers and educated specialists, set a plan in movement to take care of the financial viability of their metropolis after the approaching demise of the lumber business, which had till then supplied the underpinnings of Menominee’s financial system. The plan included the design of one of many largest and most fashionable sugarbeet factories to seem in America as much as that point.
As the lumber period petered out at the start of the 20th century, railroads that had come into their very own due to timber, sought new sources of income. Principal amongst them was the Detroit and Mackinac Railroad whose land agent, Charles M. Garrison, collected and distributed details about the potential of the sugarbeet business. While Garrison unfold phrase amongst Detroit’s financiers about potential income in sugarbeets, communities affected by the decline of lumber appeared to space assets for tactics of replenishing wealth. They had loads to work with. The state was crisscrossed with rail traces and rivers and a few left over money from the lumber period. With Garrison main the way in which, buyers perked up. Communities wanting to discover a fast alternative for lumber hastened to attend conferences sponsored by Garrison and faster but to convey their cities into the fold. All that was wanted was to steer the farmers to develop the beets. That is the place the Michigan Agricultural College (Now Michigan State University) stepped in.
Upper Peninsula farmers, inspired by Michigan Agricultural College to plant sugarbeet check plots, acquired a fair better shot within the arm by the go to of Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, in 1902. He expounded the benefits of sugarbeets and discouraged the notion that the Upper Peninsula’s local weather wasn’t as much as the duty of manufacturing worthwhile crops. Wilson served in three presidential cupboards, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft, serving longer (1897-1913) than some other cupboard official. He inspired fashionable agriculture strategies, together with transportation and schooling as they utilized to agriculture. His phrase carried a number of weight. When he spoke of sugarbeets, some farmers listened and when his division avowed that the chilly northern temperatures wouldn’t inhibit the event of the business of their neighborhood, buyers, farmers, and producers lined as much as start the business in Menominee.
Optimism rose to new heights when the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) introduced favorable outcomes of the sugarbeet plot checks. The Sugar Beet News of December 15, 1903, reported check outcomes from beets delivered by roughly 140 farmers. The check runs revealed 15.6 to 19.9 % sugar, which meant a money worth to the farmers per acre of from $5.70 to $7.13 per ton ($135-$169 inflation adjusted to the present interval). At these projected costs, no crop in human historical past had held the potential for creating such a excessive return from so few acres.
In the Lower Peninsula, a farmer with above common means who positioned fifteen acres in sugarbeets may earn greater than $800 and if his household supplied the majority of the labor, the web revenue would greater than handle a household’s wants for a 12 months, which, together with meals, was lower than $800. After including income from crops in rotation and revenues from milk, eggs, and poultry, the farm household’s way of life superior from a subsistence stage to at least one that in contrast favorably to those that held mid-management positions in business. USDA figures supported perception that Upper Peninsula beets would exceed by two per cent the typical for all the opposite 18 sugar beet factories within the Lower Peninsula.
If the checks proved dependable indicators, Menominee area beets have been price as much as $10 extra an acre than Lower Peninsula beets, assuring an earnings of almost $1,000 per 12 months simply from sugarbeets.
Although enthusiasm was on the upturn, one thing extra was wanted to seal the deal. To instill confidence in potential buyers that technical experience lay close to at hand, Benjamin Boutell, who received fame as each a tugboat captain and as a captain of business, arrived in Menominee from his Bay City, Michigan headquarters for the one function of conveying buyers to Bay County the place they may see groomed beet fields and environment friendly factories spinning out white crystalline sugar. Eleven potential buyers accompanied Boutell to Bay City the place convincing proof lay at hand. Four beet sugar factories, greater than in some other metropolis within the United States, had been constructed in that metropolis’s environs. Bay City nearly hummed with financial exercise due to the presence of sugar factories. Mansions peopled by former lumber barons who had remodeled themselves into sugar barons, lined town’s prestigious Center Avenue.
Boutell introduced he would develop into one of many buyers, offering the opposite buyers had no objection to having a manufacturing facility designed and put in by Joseph Kilby who was in line with Boutell, the best constructor of beet sugar factories within the United States. Many others agreed with Boutell’s evaluation; Kilby constructed 9 of the eventual twenty-four factories inbuilt Michigan. Local buyers lined up behind Boutell to prepare the Menominee River Sugar Company. A half dozen essential backers got here ahead, every of whom subscribed to greater than $25,000 in inventory of the Menominee River Sugar Company.
Heading up the listing of native shareholders was Samuel M. Stephenson, a former lumber producer and native of New Brunswick, Canada who had made a house for himself, his spouse, Jennie and their 4 daughters and one son, in Menominee. He was then seventy-one years of age however in no temper for retirement. Following a profitable profession in lumber and banking, he served three successive phrases in Congress (Michigan’s 11th District 1889-93 and the 12th District 1893-97). He invested $100,000 ($2 million by fashionable requirements) within the beet sugar manufacturing facility, taking coronary heart in not solely favorable check plot outcomes and the passion of his neighbors but in addition curiosity proven by the American Sugar Refining Corporation, usually identified by its then common sobriquet, the Sugar Trust. Some years later the Sugar Trust would fall into disfavor on account of costs of unfair enterprise practices, however in 1903, it had the arrogance of most of the people and buyers alike and managed the manufacture and sale of 98% of sugar consumed within the United States. Trust Executives, Arthur Donner and Charles R. Heike, invested $300,000 to amass 36% of Menominee River Sugar Company’s inventory.
All the members of the board of administrators and roster of officers aside from Bay City resident, Benjamin Boutell, listed Menominee as their house of report. Menominee residents made up 74% of the shareholders. Together, they managed 53% of the shares. In addition to Stephenson, different main shareholders who additionally accepted positions as both officers or administrators have been: William O. Carpenter who invested $55,000 and served the sugar firm variously as president and vice-president. Gustave A. Blesch invested $15,000 and served as treasurer. John Henes, a brewery proprietor, invested $25,000 and served as a director. Augustus Spies was the second largest investor after Stephenson and the Sugar Trust. He, too, served as a director.
Spies present a wonderful instance of the hardy pioneering spirit that prevailed in Menominee. He was a local of the grand duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany the place fertile soils and a gentle local weather allowed the manufacturing of grain and wine. He participated within the founding of the Stephenson National Bank in partnership with future U.S. Congressman Samuel M. Stephenson and Samuel’s brother, future U.S. Senator, Isaac Stephenson. In addition, he owned the Spies Lumber Company and several other giant tracts of forest; he was an investor within the First National Bank of Menominee, the Marinette and Menominee Paper Company and president of the Menominee Light, Railroad and Power Company. When the fledgling sugar firm bought underneath approach, he stepped ahead with $75,000 ($1.5 million in present {dollars}).
Support from Menominee’s rich class, who additionally shared distinctions of constructing good enterprise choices and rising on their very own benefit fairly than inherited wealth, was so nice that there was no have to solicit funds from the general public at giant. With its shares over-subscribed by $35,000, the Menominee River Sugar Company was within the enviable place of getting ample capital for its enterprise. Not solely was it possessed of ample capital but in addition it loved the additional benefit of the expertise of Benjamin Boutell and representatives of the Sugar Trust. Menominee wouldn’t need for technical or enterprise experience.
Gustave Blesch, like Augustus Spies, owed his success to the inherited qualities of laborious work, honesty and the respect of his friends. He would develop into the sugar firm’s first treasurer. He was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1859, the son of Francis Blesch, a local of Germany and Antoinette Schneider, a local of Belgium. Gustave turned an workplace boy within the Kellogg National Bank of Green Bay, rising to teller by the age of twenty. Five years later, he moved to Menominee to assist set up the First National Bank of Menominee the place he started as cashier earlier than changing into the financial institution’s president. He turned president of the Menominee Brick Company, vice-president of the Menominee-Marinette Light & Traction Company, and treasurer of the Peninsula Land Company.
In January, 1903, the newly elected board of administrators authorized an $800,000 (almost $19 million in present period {dollars}) development contract for a Kilby designed and constructed manufacturing facility that will slice 1,000 tons of beets per day. Of the 48 beet sugar factories in operation within the United States in 1903, solely two have been bigger than Menominee’s new manufacturing facility, one in Salinas, California and one other in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The common sugar manufacturing facility in Michigan in 1903 may slice 600 tons of beets in a twenty-four hour interval. Four thousand acres of beets would simply provide a season’s manufacturing facility run. Had the buyers surveyed the farmers first, absolutely they might have been suggested to construct a smaller manufacturing facility, and maybe would have been persuaded to construct none. Farmers delivered beets from roughly 1,500 acres, properly wanting the 9,000 acres the funding demanded.
The Menominee manufacturing facility’s first manufacturing facility run (known as a “campaign” within the sugar business) ended shortly, having acquired solely 14,263 tons, sufficient for a manufacturing run of fourteen days for a manufacturing facility the buyers deliberate to function at the very least 100 days. However, the farmers had submitted beets containing the best sugar reported of any firm throughout its first marketing campaign, 15.04 p.c – about 20 p.c greater than common and sufficient to permit for a small revenue from a meager beet provide. Like almost all of the factories, information that will inform us of revenue, if any, earned throughout that first marketing campaign, didn’t survive the passage of time. However, it might be affordable to estimate, primarily based on the identified price of provides of coal, coke, limestone and the price of labor, {that a} revenue of $36,000 was achievable, particularly underneath a administration fashion that paid shut consideration to expenditures and particularly in gentle of the very excessive share of sugar within the beets.
The second marketing campaign was higher with sufficient beets for a full month, nonetheless properly wanting a provide wanted to generate income sufficient to justify the funding. By 1911, the native provide reached a stage that allowed regular income however was inadequate to encourage enlargement, a situation that continued till 1926 when grower apathy fell to a stage that required closing the manufacturing facility till 1933 when it reopened for a remaining run of twenty years throughout which the manufacturing facility lagged behind the business in expertise and progress. Year in and 12 months out, due to an insufficient provide of beets, largely grown in Wisconsin, the underutilized manufacturing facility ended its marketing campaign weeks sooner than was wanted to provide wholesome income which then may have been reinvested within the manufacturing facility. Menominee buyers realized, as did many different sugar manufacturing facility buyers, that the mantra, “build it and they will come” fell on deaf ears amongst farmers who usually displayed a greater understanding of sugar economics than did buyers.
The passage of time introduced neither hurt nor good to the Menominee manufacturing facility because it was unable to broaden or modernize. It settled into the method of swish getting older. Profits awaiting alternative regularly accrued because of the corporate’s penurious administration fashion and a devoted cadre of farmers.
George W. McCormick, the corporate’s first supervisor, inaugurated a cautious administration fashion that went a good distance towards maintaining the corporate worthwhile regardless of annual shortfalls within the beet provide. He managed the corporate throughout its first thirty-two years of operation, starting when he was twenty-four years of age. He met Benjamin Boutell in Bay City when he moved there to take a job as a district supervisor for Travelers Insurance Company. Boutell thought the younger man belonged within the quickly creating sugar business and inspired him to assist in the institution of a sugar manufacturing facility in Wallaceburg, Ontario. After finishing the task with success, Boutell advisable him for the supervisor’s job in Menominee.
Menominee was probably the most tough place within the United States to course of sugarbeets. The low temperatures took a heavy toll on employees, equipment and beets that normally went by the slicing machines like boulders, damaging gear that robbed the manufacturing facility of slender assets. It was tough to seek out alternative elements due to the space separating Menominee from suppliers and from Lower Peninsula sugar factories the place it was frequent for manufacturing facility managers to lend spare elements to at least one one other.
The firm’s diligent consideration to price management paid off in 1924 when sugar factories positioned in Green Bay and Menominee Falls, Wisconsin went in the marketplace. Menominee River Sugar Company bought each after which invested important sums in restoring the Menominee Falls manufacturing facility that had been shut for 3 years instantly previous its sale.
The renovated Menominee Falls manufacturing facility mixed with the Green Bay and Menominee, Michigan factories created extra capability than was wanted for the obtainable acreage. One of the factories must shut. Menominee received the noose after the accountants counted up the freight prices for hauling beets to every manufacturing facility. The Menominee manufacturing facility remained closed till 1933 when Michigan’s farmers relented and agreed to return to sugarbeets, a call that got here too late to avoid wasting the hides of the sugar firm’s house owners who had misplaced the corporate to defaulted bonds three years earlier.
Disruptions in Europe starting within the early a part of the 1930s introduced a brand new title to Michigan’s beet sugar fields and company places of work – Flegenheimer. Albert Flegenheimer was the son of Samuel Flegenheimer who had immigrated to the United States in both 1864 or 1866 and have become a naturalized citizen in 1873. The subsequent 12 months, nevertheless, he returned to Germany, settling in Wurttemberg. He lived out his life there, dying in 1929 on the age of 81. His transient sojourn within the United States and his U.S. citizenship standing, nevertheless, would at some point save his descendants from German demise camps.
In February 1939, Albert Flegenheimer carried his household to the protection of Canada after which to the U.S. claiming nationality because the son of a naturalized citizen. He deliberate to lift his household and dedicate his time to the sugar business in each the United States and Canada. His plans met with appreciable success and by 1954, he managed the sugar manufacturing facility in Menominee and the one in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Despite Albert Flegenheimer’s efforts, a scarcity of curiosity on the a part of farmers stored the manufacturing facility small and outdated. It struggled 12 months by 12 months till lastly in 1955 with its gear exhausted, its buildings in tattered restore and its farmers pursuing different crops, Menominee River Sugar Company, constructed on hopes and goals and operated with fortitude and persistence for greater than a half-century, closed its doorways perpetually.
Sources:
GUTLEBEN, Dan, The Sugar Tramp-1954- Michigan, Printed by: Bay City Duplicating Co, San Francisco, 1954
1962 TWIN CITY COMMUNITY RESOURCES WORKSHOP, part entitled Famous Leaders Who Helped Build Menominee, ready by Irene Swain, Dr. Leo J. Alilunas, Director.
HENLEY, ROBERT L., Sweet Success . . .The Story of Michigan’s Beet Sugar Industry 1898 – 1974, Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries
INFLATION ADJUSTMENTS: The pre-1975 knowledge are the Consumer Price Index statistics from Historical Statistics of the United States (USGPO, 1975). All knowledge since then are from the annual Statistical Abstracts of the United States. Recorded at http://www.westegg.com/inflation
MICHIGAN ANNUAL REPORTS, Michigan Archives, Lansing, Michigan ©2009 Thomas Mahar
About the Author: Thomas Mahar served as Executive Vice President of Monitor Sugar Company between 1984 and 1999 and as President of Gala Food Processing, a sugar packaging firm, from 1993-1998. He retired in 1999 and now devotes his free time to writing in regards to the historical past of the sugar business. He authored, Sweet Energy, The Story of Monitor Sugar Company in 2001.
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