In mid July of 1905, businessmen from Michigan came to Chaska to discuss the potential of building a beet sugar factory in town. The city made it clear that they would donate the required land, known as the Heinecke tract. And so the Carver County Sugar Company was born.

The construction of the factory in 1905 was quite a project. As the Chaska Weekly Valley Herald noted, "The total investment in this plant when complete will be about $500,000. There will be 2 million brick in the buildings and also two and a half miles of railroad tracks about the grounds. The main building will be three stories high."

The factory equipment was hauled from Michigan to Chaska. One worker died during construction fulfilling a long-held belief amongst early sugar workers that the price of each new plant was a human life. The finished plant cost about $750,000.

The first beets were processed in October of 1906. The company employed about 185 men outside of the office force during the first campaign (as the processing of the harvest was known as). Campaigns usually began around November 1st and continued for up to 120 days. During the first campaign, 40,000 tons of beets were processed.

In 1911, the Carver County Sugar Company was renamed the Minnesota Sugar Company. At this time nearly all the beets it was processing were grown within a few miles of the plant. Among the first farmers who contracted with the company was Gerhardt Van Sloun. In 1907, he was paid $140 for two acres of beet production.

In 1918, a farmer near Crookston felt adventurous and planted beets, which was so successful that beets began to be grown throughout the Red River Valley, along the northwestern border of the state, in the early nineteen twenties. All of these were processed in Chaska.

The beet sugar industry continued to flourish in Minnesota. In September of 1924 the American Beet Sugar Company began negotiations with the Minnesota Sugar Company and the Northern Sugar Corporation. In December of that year American Beet Sugar agreed to acquire both companies through a stock purchase. With the purchase of the Iowa Valley Sugar Company in 1926 came a new corporate name, the American Crystal Sugar Company, officially adopted in 1934.

The Chaska plant was in its heyday in the nineteen twenties. With a guaranteed payment of $5.00 per ton with a bonus that rose as sugar prices did, sugar beets could offer farmers a consistent income that other crops could not. In fact, the Chaska plant's success was enough to encourage the American Beet Sugar Company to build another plant in East Grand Forks in 1926. Many of Chaska's early workers went to the East Grand Forks plant.

In the years that followed, however, the American Beet Sugar Company struggled to survive. Although the East Grand Forks plant was very successful, the losses at the other plants led to overall loss for the company. The stock market crash and the Depression in the thirties further hampered the situation by decreasing sugar consumption. Workers felt the Depression as well. Every employee took a sizable pay cut, including the president of the company who cut his own salary by 25%.

During World War II, sugar use in the United States was rationed for America's European allies. Chaska's factory was used to slice and dry potatoes for conversion into industrial alcohol. Yet the industry lagged due to a lack of workers. By the mid nineteen forties mechanical loaders were a part of nearly all the growers' operations. As tractors especially built for beet cultivation came into more widespread use, less and less seasonal labor was needed. The sugar beet industry was growing once again.

The 1951 average was well over 1600 tons daily with a record daily slice of 1851 tons. The factory employed 40-60 people full time. During campaigns those numbers rose to 240-280. During the campaign, workers had 12 hour shifts, seven days a week. These shifts later changed to three 8-hour shifts: 8-4, 4-12, and 12- 8. The longest campaign lasted 110 days. The shortest was 47 days in 1956.

As the years passed, the factory struggled with challenges. New Pollution Control Agency regulations were cost prohibitive for the small plant. In addition, the factory primarily operated with outdated, manual equipment at a time when other factories were much more automated. By 1967-68, things didn't look very good. Yet the company continued to invest money in the plant which many workers took as a good sign.

When the company decided to close the processing part of the plant in 1971, many were shocked. For some the news came over the radio; for others, it was when they went to work the next day and saw the sign on the wall. Sure they expected the plant to close, but not yet. The staff was reduced from 40 to 60 year- round employees to about a dozen.

In 1993, American Crystal Sugar Company became United Sugars. "Crystal Sugar" remains one of the trade names presently in use. The Chaska facility is used as a liquid sugar distribution center. Customers are companies like Nestle's, Kellogg's, Green Giant, Kemps, and Blue Bunny. Molasses and products are used in the production of alcohol, Fleichmann's yeast, and penicillin.

The importance of the sugar factory in Chaska during much of the 20th century gave the city a nickname and identity unlike any other. The "Sugar City" had "Sugar Days," "Sugar City Oil," "Sugar City Real Estate," "Sugar City Cooperative Creamery," "Sugar City Park and Valley Ballroom" and "Sugar City Basketball Team."

More about the Chaska Historical Society
The Chaska Historical Society was officially organized in 1980 by a group of people who recognized the need to record and preserve the history of Chaska. Located in a recently restored livery building, the Chaska History Center has become a resource center for researching the history of Chaska and its people through exhibits, photographs, letters, diaries, maps, artifacts, documents and copies of the Chaska Herald newspaper. Current activities of the society include the creation of a digital cataloguing system which will eventually be accessible online, research on the third volume of the Chaska history book, Chaska, A Minnesota River City, developing exhibits and displays and the staffing of the History Center by volunteers Tuesday through Friday each week. For more information, visit their website at www.chaskahistory.org or e-mail them at historical@chaskahistory.org. The Historical Society's address is 112 West Fourth Street, Chaska, Minnesota 55318.