Manuscripts Collection
The American Beet Sugar Company, predecessor of the American Crystal Sugar Company, was incorporated on March 24, 1899. The new company consolidated under one management four beet sugar companies that had been established by Henry Oxnard during the preceding decade. Oxnard's interest in the sugar industry had been influenced by his father, Thomas, an entrepreneur who had successfully operated cane sugar refineries in Louisiana, Boston, and Brooklyn. In 1887 Henry had traveled to Europe to learn about the beet sugar industry on that continent, where the process had originated in the early nineteenth century and was much more extensively developed than in the United States.
Oxnard came back from Europe eager to try his hand at beet sugar processing. Attracted to Nebraska by a state bounty of one cent per pound of sugar produced, he established the Oxnard Beet Sugar Company at Grand Island in 1890. The next year he built the Norfolk Beet Sugar Company in Norfolk, Nebraska, and the Chino Valley Beet Sugar Company in Chino, California, where the growing season was longer than in Nebraska. In 1894 Oxnard organized the Oxnard Construction Company, which built an addition to the Chino factory in the same year and which in 1897 constructed the plant for Oxnard's fourth enterprise, the Pacific Beet Sugar Company, in Oxnard, California.
After these four companies were combined as the American Beet Sugar Company in 1899, expansion continued in Colorado. The Oxnard Construction Company completed a plant at Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 1901. The Norfolk factory was closed in 1904 because of an insufficient supply of beets, but its machinery was salvaged and installed in a new factory at Lamar, Colorado, built in 1905. Another new factory was built in Las Animas, Colorado, in 1907 under the corporate charter of the Las Animas Sugar Company, a subsidiary of American Beet Sugar. Beet shortages forced both the Lamar and the Las Animas factories to suffer early closings and entire seasons without production during their first years, but by 1915 enough beets were being grown locally to sustain full production at both factories. Large tracts of land were purchased by American Beet Sugar near the Colorado factories and used as company farms on which cattle, swine, peas, oats, and alfalfa, as well as beets, were raised. In California, transportation of beets to the Oxnard factory was facilitated by the purchase in 1912 of the Bakersfield and Ventura Railroad Company, which became a subsidiary of American Beet Sugar under the name of the Ventura County Railway Company.
Assisting Henry Oxnard during these years were his brothers, Robert and James, with financial backing from two New York financiers, W. Bayard Cutting and James G. Hamilton. Technical expertise was acquired by importing machinery and engineers from Europe. Federal legislation alternatively helped and hindered the sugar industry. The McKinley Act (1890) provided for a bounty of two cents per pound on domestic sugar but it was repealed by the Wilson Act four years later. Domestic sugar production was further hurt by the Underwood-Simmons Act (1913), which reduced the duty on all imported sugar by 25 percent.
A summary of United Stated States sugar tariffs, 1789-1930, can be found in
Throughout the 1900-1920 period, the beet sugar industry was growing rapidly, especially in the western states. During this period the Great Western Sugar Company built seventeen factories; the Holly Sugar Corporation, six; the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, ten; and the Amalgamated Sugar Company, ten. Most of these factories were located in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and California. In response to this growth, the American Beet Sugar Company began to seek new areas for beet sugar production. The company's attention was drawn to Minnesota, from which farmers had sent beets to be processed at the Grand Island factory as early as 1892.
A small beet sugar processing plant had been built in St. Louis Park, just outside of Minneapolis, in 1898, but production ceased in 1905 after the plant was destroyed by fire. In 1906, the Carver County Sugar Company (renamed the Minnesota Sugar Company in 1911) opened a factory in Chaska on the Minnesota River southwest of Minneapolis. While most of the beets processed at the Chaska factory were grown in southern Minnesota, in the early 1920s farmers in the Red River Valley, along the northwestern border of the state, began to grow sugar beets and send them to Chaska. By 1923 the Red River Valley farmers were encouraging the Minnesota Sugar Company to build a factory in the valley. The company agreed on condition that the farmers raise money to help finance the project. East Grand Forks was chosen as the site of the factory. Commercial clubs in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks sold $300,000 in stock and obtained a $100,000 loan from the U.S. Agricultural Credit Corporation. A new company, the Red River Sugar Company, was incorporated to build the plant.
Meanwhile, Herman Zitkowski, general chemist at American Beet Sugar and one of its most influential officers, took a tour of the valley in 1924 and reported favorably to the company's management on its prospects as a plant locale. In September of 1924 the American Beet Sugar Company began negotiations with the Minnesota Sugar Company and the Northern Sugar Corporation, which had a processing factory in Mason City, Iowa. In December of that year American Beet Sugar agreed to acquire both companies through a stock purchase. It also agreed to continue construction of the East Grand Forks factory, which was opened in October of 1926. Two years later American Beet Sugar acquired its fourth factory in Minnesota and Iowa when it purchased the Iowa Valley Sugar Company's factory in Belmond, Iowa. Along with these new factories came a new corporate name, the American Crystal Sugar Company, adopted in 1934.
In August of 1929 the company had acquired an interest in the Amalgamated Sugar Company, which had factories in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and California. Six Amalgamated factories were put under the management of American Beet Sugar. Efforts to fully integrate the two companies proved unsuccessful, and in 1936 the American Crystal Sugar Company relinquished its stock in Amalgamated in exchange for ownership of Amalgamated's factories in Clarksburg, California and Missoula, Montana.
The company survived the depression years of the 1930s fairly well, and none of its factories was forced to close. However, economy measures were required. The hourly rate for common labor, for example, fell from 45 cents in 1920 to 32 1/2 cents in 1930. The staggering economy also forced the company to obtain $5 million of acceptance credit in 1930 by putting up its sugar inventory as collateral. The late 1930s saw the beginning of labor unions in the company's factories; American Federation of Labor locals were organized at Clarksburg, Oxnard, and Missoula in 1937, and other factories soon followed.
World War II increased the demand for sugar, but federal restrictions to conserve building materials prevented the construction of additional factories until after the war. Then two Minnesota factories were added in the Red River Valley, one in Moorhead in 1948 and the other in Crookston in 1954.
American Crystal continued to be affected by the increasingly competitive world sugar market. The Sugar Act of 1948 established domestic and import quotas to be enforced by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture; the provisions of the act remained in effect until 1974. Any hope that the beet sugar industry would be boosted by the suspension of Cuban sugar imports in 1961 was dashed by increased imports from other cane-producing countries. Under these conditions the company began to pursue a course of retrenchment which was followed throughout the 1960s: the Ventura County Railway Company was sold in 1959, and factories were closed at Oxnard (1959), Grand Island (1964), Missoula (1966), and Chaska (1971). Attempts to merge with the Ideal Cement Company (1967) and the Archer Daniels Midland Company (1970) were unsuccessful.
These events created apprehension among the farmers in the Red River Valley, which contained the greatest concentration of American Crystal's factories (a fourth had been built in Drayton, North Dakota, in 1963), but which was a great distance from the corporate headquarters in Denver, where the decisions on factory operations were being made. In late 1971 the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association learned that 100,000 shares of American Crystal Sugar stock were available for purchase. A number of the association's members decided to buy the stock in order to make sure their concerns were taken seriously by the company's board of directors. In December of 1971 the president of the growers association went one step further and suggested that the association buy the company. Seventy percent of the association members voted in favor of the proposal. In March of 1972 American Crystal set up a negotiating committee to consider the proposal and also began investigating the stock and tax consequences of the sale. Negotiation over the price continued throughout the spring and summer of 1972. The final agreement settled on $86 million: $50 million for the company, $16 million to retire long-term debt, and $20 million to retire short-term debt. To finance the purchase, the farmers incorporated Crystal Grower's Corporation, for which they sold $20 million in stock; the remaining $66 million was obtained through bank loans. The final agreement became effective February 21, 1973, and on June 14 of that year the American Crystal Sugar Company was reincorporated as an agricultural cooperative.
Since 1973 the cooperative has consolidated its position in the Red River Valley and substantially withdrawn from its other operating regions. The new management moved the corporate headquarters from Denver to Moorhead, where a beet research center was also built. A factory was acquired at Hillsboro, North Dakota, in 1975 through a merger with the Red River Valley Co-op. In addition, American Crystal Sugar managed and operated the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative's factory at Renville, Minnesota from 1976 to 1978. In the West, however, the Clarksburg, California and the Rocky Ford, Colorado factories were operated as "non-member businesses," and the latter factory was leased to a grower-owned cooperative. The Mason City factory ceased operations in 1973, and the Rocky Ford factory was closed in 1979 (but continued to function as a distributing facility until it and the surrounding 6,000 acres were sold in 1982). Clarksburg was sold to a group of California growers who formed Delta Sugar Company. Transfer of Clarksburg to the new owners was completed in July 1984.
The expiration of the Sugar Act in 1974 led to violent swings in sugar prices that alternately enriched and bankrupted the United States sugar industry. Beet and cane sugars have also experienced increasing competition from artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrups. Despite these problems, the American Crystal Sugar Company has emerged in the 1980s as the nation's largest beet sugar processor.
The operations of the company require a large force of skilled and semi-skilled labor. The sugar production process was from its inception almost entirely mechanized, and the majority of the labor force occupies positions either operating or maintaining factory machinery. A wide range of skill levels is required in these positions. Among the most skilled are the foremen, who oversee various aspects of the production process. Another, peculiar to the sugar industry, is the sugar boiler, whose ability to boil the sugar without burning it makes this an especially skilled position. Others of the skilled posts--head mechanic, electrician, welder, and machinist--are related to the extensive maintenance requirements of the machinery. Connected to most of these positions are two or three assistant positions, in which workers gain skills through apprenticeship. Less skilled jobs include operators of various machines, such as carbonators, evaporators, and granulators. Janitors, supply handlers, and knife cleaners occupy the least skilled positions.
Each of the factories employs between 150 and 600 people at full capacity, but much of the labor force is seasonal. The factories' production period, called the "campaign," begins in the fall with the beet harvest (usually in September) and lasts about five months. During the campaign each factory operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Four separate crews are required to fill the three shifts in order to keep each employee's work week within 41 hours. Only during the campaign are the factories' full labor forces employed. During the rest of the year (intercampaign) only a skeleton labor force is retained to repair and maintain the machinery; it usually comprises about one-fifth of the campaign force.
The company's factories were unionized in the late 1930s, with each plant organizing its own union local. Those in the east (Missoula, Rocky Ford, Grand Island, Mason City, Chaska, Moorhead, and East Grand Forks) were part of the American Federation of Grain Millers; they are also referred to in the records as Beet Sugar Refinery Employees locals or simply as federal labor union locals. The California locals belonged to the Beet Sugar Operators of America, which in the late 1940s became part of a larger union organization called the United Sugar Workers Council of California. This council also represented locals at the California factories of Holly Sugar Corporation and Spreckels Sugar Company. By the late 1940s American Crystal had joined Holly and Spreckels as a management negotiating team, which bargained with the council to reach annual master contracts covering all the California factories. Individual contract changes might then be made by each factory and appended to the master contract.
Until the 1970s the American Crystal Sugar Company had two levels of management organization. The top level consisted of the company's officers, including the president, the general superintendent, and the general chemist. It also included various specialized departments, such as operations, transportation, and general labor. The other level of organization comprised the management at each factory, consisting of a manager, who administered the factory's agricultural business with the farmers, and a superintendent, who managed the factory operations. The superintendent was supported by an assistant superintendent, a master mechanic, a chief chemist, a chief engineer, and a chief electrician.
Historically the cultivation of sugar beets has been accomplished by a partnership between the farmer and the company. Each year before the spring planting season, factory representatives travel through beet growing areas to obtain contracts with farmers to purchase their beets. The contracts offer specific prices, which vary according to the sugar content of the beets and the market price of sugar and which are paid to the farmer when the beets are delivered to the factory in the fall. Further payments, based on the selling prices of the finished products, are paid at a later date.
Before high quality seed became commercially available, farmers who signed the contract were required to plant seeds sold by the company, though commercial seed is now used. After the beets have grown above ground, the farmer prevents overcrowding by taking out half or more of the plants; this is known as thinning.
The harvest usually begins in September. It involves not only removing the beets from the ground but also topping them by cutting off the leafy stem at the top of the plant. Both thinning and topping require a considerable amount of seasonal labor. Sometimes groups of local high school students are hired, but more often migrant laborers from Mexico are used. The company assists the growers in recruiting migrant labor, sending agents to operate recruiting offices in various towns in Texas. The company also makes arrangements for farmers to hire fieldmen to supervise the labor. As tractors specially built for beet cultivation have come into more widespread use, less and less seasonal labor has been needed.
After the beets are harvested, the farmer transports them to loading stations, called beet dumps, where they are transferred to railroad cars or trucks for the trip to the factory. At the factory the beets are placed in large outdoor piles to await processing. Once inside the factory, the beets are washed, cut into strips called cossettes, and placed in water into which the beet's sugar dissolves. The cossettes are then removed, dried, and made into pulp to be sold as cattle feed. The sugar solution is put through various chemical processes to extract impurities, then is boiled, dried,
crystalized, and packed into bags to be sold as Crystal Sugar. For a detailed description of the technical process of producing beet sugar, see
The main body of corporate records begins in 1899, with the incorporation of the American Beet Sugar Company, and continues through American Crystal's reorganization as a cooperative in 1973. Minutes (several series), ledgers and journals, stock records, and annual reports are nearly complete for the entire period. Subject files, statistical data, and labor records, as well as a variety of supplementary materials, also span these years, although concentrated in the 1950s and 1960s. Photographs and photo albums depict the company's facilities and operations throughout its history.
The records of 14 other predecessor or subsidiary companies, active largely during the 1910s to 1930s, are present in varying degrees of completeness. A few land titles and statistical items predate 1899, and several files of reports, labor records, and miscellany continue sporadically through the 1970s.
Among the topics documented in the records are corporate decision making and its effect on corporate growth and development; labor relations, including the use of migrant labor in agriculture; agricultural mechanization; U.S. sugar industry development and regulation; the operations of the Sugar Trust; changes in corporate financing; and local information on factories and communities in California, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Colorado.
American Crystal Sugar Company's records further represent a remarkable span of corporate history. Because of their relative completeness, they offer an unusual opportunity to study the development of one company's business strategy; corporate decision making and its effect upon corporate growth and development; labor relations, and in particular the use of migrant labor in agriculture; agricultural mechanization; United States sugar industry development and regulation; the operations of the Sugar Trust; and changes in corporate financing techniques. In addition, the considerable information on the company's factories and the communities in which they operated should be of interest to industrial archaeologists, and to local and regional historians in California, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado.
The collection was carefully selected from more than 4,000 cubic feet of records stored at the corporate headquarters, in a Moorhead, Minnesota, warehouse, and at the closed sugar factory in Rocky Ford, Colorado.
Included are correspondence; financial records; minutes of board of directors, executive committee, and stockholders annual and special meetings; labor records; company publications; statistical reports; land and property records; corporate office correspondence and subject files; and stockholder registers. Many series are virtually complete from 1899 through 1972.
In addition to these corporate series, the collection includes other records with rich research potential. Examples of such records are the early twentieth century minutes of the Agricultural Club of Oxnard, California, and of the Rocky Ford Foreman's Club; a set of scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings from local papers referring to individual American Crystal Sugar plants; and a remarkable collection of photographs documenting the factories, farm machinery used from 1899 to the present, migrant laborers, company housing, beet field cultivation, and changes in factory machinery.
An additional wealth of information is contained in a series of research files compiled by Dan Gutleben, the beet industry's chief chronicler until his death in 1969. The Gutleben materials include detailed information on each of the American Crystal Sugar plants, including biographical data on plant managers and other personnel, historical sketches, and numerous photographs.
The collection also contains a rare group of annual reports for other sugar companies, many of them difficult or impossible to locate in any public repository. Included are reports of the Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation, Holly Sugar Corporation, Godchaux Sugars Inc., Great Western Sugar Company, National Sugar Refining Company, and the Cuban-American Sugar Company.
In addition to the records of the American Crystal Sugar Company, the collection contains important records of a number of its chief predecessor and subsidiary companies. Among these are records of the Minnesota Sugar Company, Northern Sugar Corporation, Riverside Land and Canal Company, Las Animas Sugar Company, Mid Western Sugar Company, and Carver County Sugar Company.
These documents are organized into the following sections:
Carmichael, David, comp. Guide to the records of the American Crystal Sugar Company (Minnesota Historical Society, 1985).
A copy of the published guide, supplemented by a box location list, is available in the repository; filed in the ALPHA notebooks under the heading: American Crystal Sugar Company.
Accession numbers: 12,852; 12,886; 13,303
Catalog ID number: 09-00041786
Disposition Note: In 2005, Series 12 (general ledgers) and Series 13 (general journals) were removed from the collection and destroyed, in keeping with the repository's business records retention policies.
These records consist of copies of American Crystal's bylaws and certificate of incorporation (March 24, 1899), and their amended versions through the 1970s. Also included is board of directors' correspondence relating to the printing and distribution of these documents.
Annual reports are complete for the years 1905 through 1980. Each includes a list of company officers and directors, financial statements, reports on beet crops, and reports on processing plant operations.
These scrapbooks were compiled for American Crystal in the 1940s by Dan Gutleben, an amateur historian of the sugar industry whose interest stemmed from his work for the Oxnard Construction Company in 1899 and his several subsequent positions in the sugar industry, including service as chief engineer at the National Sugar Company. They consist of biographical and historical narratives, mainly written by Gutleben, photographs, statistical compilations, occasional newspaper and magazine articles, programs, news releases, and memorabilia relating to all aspects of the history and operations of the company and its predecessors from the 1890s to the late 1940s.
Folders 1-4 ("Denver") contain information on American Crystal's corporate officers and on the sugar beet industry in general. There are biographies and photographs of the Oxnard family and their associates, who started and directed operations of the four predecessor companies and the American Beet Sugar Company; information on the early production methods and operations of the company; lists, biographies, and photographs of principal company officers; explanations of beet and beet seed cultivation (text by Gutleben with appended articles, reports, and pamphlets); U.S. Department of Agriculture press releases on beet prices (1940 and 1941); labor rate statistical tables (1890-1949); data on the company's retirement program; and information on the federal sugar bounty (text by Gutleben with excerpts from articles).
The remaining folders are devoted to the company's various processing plants organized by name of plant, with one folder for its subsidiary, the Ventura County Railway Company. They contain lists, biographies, and photographs of plant managers; a history and photograph of each plant; narratives and statistics on the plants' histories and operations; typewritten excerpts from newspaper articles about the plants; and miscellaneous news clippings and promotional materials. The Ventura County Railway folder includes photographs of steam and diesel locomotives.
The volume is an index to the scrapbooks, also prepared by Gutleben. It contains subject entries with references both to the scrapbook pages and to various drawers and shelves in the company offices; the latter references are no longer valid.
The scrapbooks were originally housed in five looseleaf volumes. These have been dismantled and the pages placed in file folders. Gutleben numbered most of the pages and loose items in the course of compiling the scrapbooks, leaving numerous gaps, apparently to allow the insertion of additional materials. A few pages appear actually to be missing; these are noted on the file folders. A number of photographs were also found to be missing from their original settings on the scrapbook pages; it is possible that some of these are now among the loose photographs (see Series 36 for photographs).
Additional historical writings and research materials on the sugar industry compiled by Gutleben can be found in the New York Public Library (1917-1936, 1 box) and the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections, East Lansing (1945-1959, 7 folders).
During the 1940s, Dan Gutleben corresponded with and solicited information from persons who had been instrumental in developing the cane sugar and incipient beet sugar industries during the years 1890-1910. This file consists of typed transcripts of his correspondence, primarily letters to him, and scrapbook material compiled by him. Most of the correspondence is biographical or autobiographical and somewhat anecdotal. It chronicles the careers of managers and technicians who headed companies such as the Holly Sugar Corporation and the California and Hawaiian Sugar Company as well as the American Beet Sugar Company, its predecessors, and the Oxnard Construction Company. Correspondents include American Beet Sugar officials Benjamin Sprague, Ernest Hamilton, and Herman Zitkowski.
The scrapbook material consists almost entirely of typed extracts from the "Ware Scrap Books"; many of them are photocopies. Lewis S. Ware (1851-1918) of Philadelphia, an active promoter of the beet sugar industry in America during the 1870s-1890s, acquired an extensive library of books on sugar, and compiled 83 volumes of scrapbooks. After his death, his collections were housed in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. In the early 1950s, Gutleben arranged for transcription of the scrapbooks, or portions of them, and sent copies of the 1500-page transcript to the Franklin Institute, the
U.S. Department of Agriculture library, and the library of the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists. Information taken from
The scrapbook extracts found with Gutleben's historical files in the American Crystal Sugar Company records, a small fraction of the full set, document the formative period of the American Beet Sugar Company and the beet sugar industry as a whole, primarily during 1889-1905. They contain information on American Beet Sugar's founders, the Oxnard family, concentrating on Henry but also mentioning Robert, Benjamin, and James. They document the range of activities pursued by the Oxnards: the construction and establishment of the four original Oxnard factories at Grand Island and Norfolk, Nebraska, and at Chino and Oxnard, California; the importation of German technology and management for these factories, with production and cost data on their early operation; the promotion of sugar beets among farmers by Henry Oxnard and other entrepreneurs; the land speculation that followed the acceptance of beets as a crop; lobbying efforts by Henry Oxnard for state and federal sugar bounties and for restrictions on sugar imports; the establishment of the American Beet Sugar Company in 1899 and its construction of the Rocky Ford, Colorado, factory in 1901; and the company's expansion into the Arkansas River Valley after 1900.
Includes Emile Zitkowski.
Covers the California beet sugar industry, including the establishment of factories at Chino and Oxnard by Henry Oxnard.
Addresses a variety of topics, including the author's 1946 tour of Great Britain's sugar refineries and advances in sugar packaging. Contains synopses of the careers of various engineers and historical data on the sugar industry in general, including its development in Japan and Latin America.
Covers factories built in Minnesota, Montana, and California between 1936 and 1948.
Traces the development of the industry in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the production of monosodium glutamate from sugar factory wastewater.
The board of directors minutes of regular (monthly) and special meetings appear to be complete from the first meeting of the board (March 28, 1899) to May 8, 1969. The board grew from four members in 1899 to twelve in 1969. The minutes record board decisions on such matters as obtaining loans, paying stock dividends, amending bylaws, letting contracts, and managing real estate. Letters calling meetings and appointing directors, as well as various legal documents, are included.
Notable entries in the minutes include the sale of the four original Oxnard factories to the American Beet Sugar Company (April 4, 1899); approval of the contract with the Oxnard Construction Company to build a plant at Rocky Ford, Colorado (January 2, 1899); setting up operations in Colorado and California, including construction contracting, land purchase and sale, and acquisition of water rights (various meetings, 1900-1906); the board's proposition to buy the Minnesota Sugar Company (November 17, 1925); and the unsuccessful efforts to merge American Crystal with the Ideal Cement Company and the Potash Company of America (September 20, 1967). Throughout the 1960s the minutes reflect the board's increasing concern with federal government regulation and with the various sugar acts.
Note: An alphabetical list of all directors through 1950 can be found on pages 13-18 of Gutleben Historical Scrapbooks, folder 1.
Note: The contents list for volumes 17-21 differs from the labels affixed to the volumes, which are erroneous.
As established in the original bylaws, the executive committee of the board of directors consisted of the chairman of the board, the president of the company (both ex officio), and three directors elected by the board. The committee met irregularly at intervals of one to six months. Its minutes, with appended reports and agreements, appear to be complete from the first meeting of the committee on December 12, 1899 to April 26, 1972.
In general, the executive committee made decisions on matters closer to the actual operations of the company than did the board of directors. The minutes include entries relating to bank loans, stock dividends, the company's pension and insurance programs, the determination of executive salaries, and approval of expenditures for new plant equipment. Yearly duties of the committee included approval of the budget and of the contracts made with beet growers, usually accomplished at the late April meeting.
Notable entries include the purchase of the Amalgamated Sugar Company and the resulting stock exchange offer to Amalgamated stockholders (August 27, 1929); an agreement with the Denver National Bank for five million dollars of acceptance credit (September 17, 1930); and the approval of the first union contracts with the American Federation of Labor locals in Clarksburg and Oxnard (August 5, 1937). Appended to the minutes at various dates are detailed financial reports on pensions, insurance, and salaries, including a notable comparison study of salaries of principal employees (June 19, 1935).
Note: An alphabetical list of all executive committee members through 1950 can be found on pages 19-23 of Gutleben Historical Scrapbooks, folder 1.
Note: The volume list above differs in several instances from erroneous contents labels affixed to the volumes.
The stockholders minutes record the proceedings of the annual stockholders meetings, usually held in June, and of a few special meetings, and list the results of elections of directors. Also included in the minutes after approximately 1950 are summaries of stockholders' questions to, and discussions with, the board of directors. Appended to the minutes are the official notices of the meetings, proxies, related certifications, and (after 1960) annual fiscal year reports.
The finance committee was established by the board of directors on February 26, 1965 to review the financial affairs of the company and to make recommendations to the board based on its review. The committee consisted of six members of the board of directors. Its minutes record the proceedings of five meetings held between May 17, 1965, and February 1, 1966. Entries in the minutes include the review of various financial statistics and discussions on securing loans. Appended to the minutes are assorted financial data, including balance sheets, marketing projections, and lists of assets.
This series comprises the proceedings of two committees formed to explore the possible sale or merger of the American Crystal Sugar Company. The first, established at the April 10, 1970 board of directors meeting, was charged with investigating a merger with the Archer Daniels Midland Company. The committee consisted of eight members of the American Crystal board of directors. Its minutes cover the proceedings of six meetings held from April 15 to August 17, 1970. They record the committee's efforts to select financial consulting firms to determine the value of each of the companies, as well as its discussions of the various possible stock exchanges and tax options that might accompany the proposed merger. Appended to the minutes are the official notices of the meetings and correspondence with investment bankers Goldman, Sachs & Co. concerning the valuation of the companies. Minutes of the last meeting (August 17, 1970) indicate that the negotiations were inconclusive and would be terminated without a recommendation for the merger.
A second negotiating committee was established by the board on March 10, 1972, to discuss the purchase of the company by the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association, Inc. The committee consisted of seven members of the American Crystal board of directors. Its minutes record the proceedings of ten meetings held from March 10 to December 18, 1972. Entries include the committee's discussions with financial consulting firms; discussions of various methods of purchase, and of the tax and stock consequences; and negotiations with representatives of the growers association (who were present at some of the meetings) over the price of the company and its constituent parts. By the December 18 meeting, the negotiations were coming to a successful conclusion; the purchase of the company by Crystal Grower's Corporation, formed by the growers association for that purpose, was completed in 1973. A press release (March 10, 1972) announcing the commencement of negotiations, and the growers association's correspondence with various lending institutions, are appended to the minutes.
The subject files (1924-1977) consist largely of correspondence, supplemented by reports, statistical compilations, legal documents, promotional pamphlets, news clippings, and literature and circulars from various organizations. They are concentrated in the 1950s and 1960s. The materials focus on American Crystal's administration, finances and labor matters; various technical, procedural, and contractual aspects of beet sugar production; and other sugar companies and industry organizations. There are fairly extensive files on beet production contracts, factory budgets, company gifts and donations, factory closings, sugar byproducts, labor regulation during the 1930s, prospective expansion into new territories, advertising and publicity, negotiations with labor unions, and water usage, as well as correspondence of board chairman Cris Dobbins.
Concerning taxes, operating expenses, purchases, and department management and personnel.
Weekly tabulations of acreage contracted, planted, and thinned.
Letters and promotional flyers, primarily regarding the "Name the Dessert" and lake home contests.
Correspondence, news releases, and promotional materials relating to newspaper, magazine, radio, and television advertising; responses to requests from the public for information about the company.
Correspondence concerning farmer contracts, acreage restrictions, beet seed, and beet dumps.
Correspondence and other information about Amalgamated's activities, production, and research; a comparison between Amalgamated and American Crystal, [ca. 1955] (7 pages).
Correspondence, speeches, meeting materials, and research reports.
Miscellaneous letters.
Purchasing, leasing, insurance matters.
Correspondence concerning the status of American Crystal's stock holdings and other investments in liquidated banks, especially the First National Bank in Grand Forks.
The beet contract files contain sample contracts, assorted price data, and correspondence regarding contract negotiations, amendments, and violations.
Miscellaneous letters.
Letters and tabulations.
Correspondence with Kleinwanzlebener Saatzucht, Germany.
The foundation's articles of incorporation and bylaws, correspondence regarding its research activities, and
Stock and financial matters; newspaper article on the Boettcher family and their Ideal Cement Company.
Trademark registration documents.
The budget files contain correspondence and statistical data relating to approval of and changes in factory budgets, as well as descriptions and discussions of expenditures.
Correspondence and reports regarding drying, storing, and shipping.
Correspondence, circular letters, and news releases, especially regarding meetings, sugar contracts, and production statistics.
Letters and circulars on matters of interest to American Crystal.
Correspondence and statistics on American Crystal's water use; summary of hearings on Central Valley [canal and irrigation] Project, 1960.
Primarily thank-you letters for gift shipments of Rocky Ford cantaloupes.
Newspaper articles, press releases, and correspondence relating to the closing of the factory, layoffs, salvage of the machinery, and sale of the property.
Charts, reports, and statistics.
Correspondence, guest and gift lists, and thank-you letters for company gifts, greetings, and parties during the Christmas season. See also file on "Turkeys."
Exchange of letters regarding its possible sale or lease.
Bylaws, membership application, copies of two district court documents from a (non-American Crystal) labor dispute.
Monthly comparisons of numbers of employees at each factory and in Denver, with comments.
Correspondence regarding a cooperative research project on the use of this sugar processing byproduct.
Typewritten proceedings of annual directors and stockholders meetings of the Rocky Ford Ditch Company and the Lamar Canal and Irrigation Company, 1956-1964, and a few related letters; and statement of Rocky Ford Ditch Company operating expenses, 1974.
Personal and business correspondence as chairman of the American Crystal board of directors, including discussion of budgeting, property sale, and executive compensation; and background data on related companies, particularly Ideal Basic Industries.
Correspondence relating to machinery, maintenance, and sewage disposal.
Correspondence, circulars and other literature, and meeting materials of this national organization for executive-level secretaries and administrative women.
Memoranda and miscellany regarding federal investigation of beet sugar companies for price discrimination.
Laboratory reports on pre-harvest samples of sugar beets.
Miscellaneous financial data on American Crystal, primarily for 1960.
Statistical compilations.
Correspondence, memoranda, and news releases regarding the decision to close the factory and the sale of its property and equipment. Includes a property survey map.
Correspondence regarding their examination of various factories' accounts.
Correspondence with corporate officials and a variety of background data.
Correspondence and financial data regarding American Crystal's stock holdings in this company.
Correspondence, primarily for 1959, regarding purchase by employees of company-owned factory residences.
Financial statements.
Income, expense, and inventory statements.
Primarily correspondence with Congress members concerning public works projects.
Correspondence regarding beet sugar processing equipment and the purchase of beet byproducts; and annual reports for 1954 and 1957.
Primarily correspondence regarding the status of supplies and equipment inventories.
Correspondence and testing procedures for determination of sugar content.
Articles and leaflets.
Correspondence and financial statements regarding American Crystal's Colorado cattle feeding operations.
Correspondence relating to the regulation of the beet sugar industry by the National Recovery Administration. Topics include child labor, wage increases, and work day schedules.
Balance sheets.
Quarrying, sales, and shipments from American Crystal's Colorado land.
Correspondence and memoranda regarding production plans and methods, and equipment orders.
Letters and circulars.
Printed reports on economic conditions.
Data and communications on beet sugar quotas and acreage allotments, primarily produced or distributed by the United States Beet Sugar Association.
Monthly itemizations.
Balance sheets.
Circulars and correspondence.
News clippings, press releases, and correspondence concerning the closing of the factory.
Correspondence and statistics relating to its production and sale.
Speech by Frank A. Kemp, 1952.
Annual data on American Crystal for Moody's publications, with related correspondence.
Correspondence and circulars.
Correspondence regarding contributions from or solicited by American Crystal.
Various reports and proceedings from its annual meetings.
Reports, memoranda, and correspondence with farmers, legislators, and chambers of commerce concerning new or prospective factories and beet growing areas in Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Texas, and other states.
Published articles, other issuances or publicity about American Crystal, and related correspondence.
Letters (mainly of acknowledgment) and press releases that accompanied the microfilmed newspaper clippings.
Circular letters and instructions; annual letters from American Crystal listing directors and corporate officials and announcing changes in corporate operating policies; and communications and publications regarding stock and dividend matters.
Orders and illustrations.
Layouts and furnishings.
Correspondence concerning beet cleaning and slicing, sugar and molasses purity, and production capacity.
Statistics with related letters and comments.
Primarily statistics.
Literature, correspondence, and company regulations for their use.
Starch content analyses.
Correspondence and statistics relating to the production and sale of beet pulp as a cattle feed.
Correspondence regarding purchase of assorted office and factory supplies and equipment.
Letters and data on the sugar industry in the area.
Letters, circulars, and news releases on membership, meetings, and marketing matters.
Several drafts of short historical sketches.
Sales representatives' correspondence and reports concerning prospective customers, operation of sales offices, and complaints.
Procedural memoranda.
Mock-up of a proposed historical pamphlet, with related correspondence and background materials.
A few letters regarding activities and meetings of this governor's advisory committee.
Meeting materials and speeches of this New York-based quasi-social organization of sugar industry leaders.
Location and use of rail tracks and sidings.
Correspondence regarding truck and rail transportation.
Stock transfer lists.
Gift lists and correspondence regarding the company's distribution of complimentary Christmas and Thanksgiving turkeys.
Meeting proceedings, correspondence, and working papers for negotiations between western sugar companies and California labor unions.
Correspondence and statistical reports regarding sugar production activities, financial matters, and labor union negotiations.
Correspondence and working papers for negotiations and grievance arbitrations with unions at midwestern plants, primarily the American Federation of Grain Millers.
Literature and correspondence regarding American Crystal contributions.
Correspondence and agreements for purchase and for development of commercial uses.
Operating reports (amounts and chemical analyses) of waste water discharge.
Correspondence and related materials regarding use permits, waste water treatment systems, and disposal (discharge) procedures.
Correspondence, reports, and legal documents regarding water rights and consumption, water diversion projects, water pollution, waste water disposal, and water sanitation analyses, especially in California and Minnesota.
Correspondence regarding the formation of this organization to serve as a vehicle for advertising and promoting sugar beet sales. Includes drafts of proposed articles of incorporation and bylaws.
The inactive agreements file (1899-1975) consists of contracts entered into by the company for the purchase of production and agricultural materials; contracts for land purchases, leases, and rights; labor agreements with unions and farm labor employment agencies; and transportation and storage agreements. Covering correspondence is sometimes attached to the contracts. This file does
The inactive agreements are arranged by contract number, in roughly chronological order; some contract numbers are missing. A few miscellaneous files of contracts arranged by subject are found at the end of the series. There is a partial index to agreements (nos. 1-2169, letters A-K only), in which entries are made under the first letter of the name of the first party to the agreement, listed there under by contract number.
The financial statements are annual (1944-1958, issued in March of each year) and monthly (1961-1963, 1974) reports containing detailed financial analyses of factory, production, and research costs; pulp and molasses sales; additions and improvements; and farm and land expenses. Data are given for operations at each processing plant. The annual statements also include the Ventura County Railway Company. Some of the statements are slightly water-damaged.
Annual statistical reports (1929-1979) detail the company's agricultural and operational functions. Agricultural statistics include acreage and yield, rainfall and temperature, and loading figures. Operating statistics include figures on slicing rates; sugar, molasses, and pulp production; and chemical and fuel use. In addition to this information, which is presented in charts, each report also contains written managers' reports (for agriculture) and superintendents' reports (for operations) summarizing the year's campaign at each factory. Reports for 1934-1936 are missing.
Statement for March 1962 is missing.
Statements for March-July 1963 are missing.
The stock records consist primarily of stock registers (stockholder lists) and stock transfer sheets. The stock registers are quarterly compilations of the name, address, amount of dividend, and number of the dividend check for each stockholder. A set of combined registers of common and preferred stockholders (1928-1953) is contained in boxes 79-81. Three separate sets of registers (for common and 6% first preferred, 1941-1967, and 4 1/2% prior preferred, 1946-1967) are in boxes 82-92; those for 1957-1965 are missing. Another set of registers, boxes 93-94, lists stockholders of record for common and preferred stock at the end of the quarter preceding annual or special meetings; this group is very incomplete. The separate sets of registers duplicate some of the information contained in the combined set.
The stock transfer sheets, boxes 95-101, are daily listings of stock issued or surrendered, giving shareholders' names, the number of shares in each transaction, and certificate numbers. One set covers common stock, another set (incomplete) the several issuances of preferred stock.
Miscellaneous stock records include an early stock ledger (1911-1936), a compilation of American Crystal stock quotations (1941-1963), printed notices to stockholders, and scattered correspondence and proxy materials.
Printed notices and circulars.
Proxy materials (lists and correspondence), 1929-1932, found loose in the stock register volume.
This series includes a variety of summary statistics on company finances, properties, and operations; audit reports; records of major capital expenditures; and assorted other financial miscellany.
A weekly record of the number of acres planted, replanted, thinned, and lost by farmers, and the number of acres contracted for with the farmers at each factory.
Ledger accounts, by factory, recording expenditures for such activities as construction projects, machinery purchases, land acquisition, and drainage.
The audit reports analyze the company's working capital, assets, and liabilities.
For real property, factory equipment, assets of other companies, and other major capital expenditures.
Correspondence.
Bonds with related correspondence.
Bonds (1910) with related correspondence.
Summary annual figures, by plant, in various operation and expense categories.
Credits and debits for beet purchases, grower association dues, and other farm-related expenses, mainly for Montana farmers. Arranged by station, thereunder by farmer's name.
Statistical compilations of receipts from sugar, cost of sugar (including cost of beets), deductions (i.e., stock dividends), charges against surplus, and inventory of sugar, all of which are calculated for individual plants as well as the entire company from its inception through 1952.
Annual compilation of the original cost, costs of capital improvements, and value of property, such as lands, livestock, office furniture, and vehicles for each factory from the company's inception through 1952.
Letterpress books including monthly cash statements, journal entries, and superintendent's reports.
Land records include United States General Land Office patents (1883-1889) issued to various Colorado landholders, none of which could be determined to have any direct connection with American Crystal Sugar or its predecessors; two detailed abstracts of title recording the previous ownership of Ventura County, California lands that were purchased by Henry Oxnard for the Pacific Beet Sugar Company, Oxnard, California; and correspondence (1916-1924) relating to a number of purchases by the company of lands near Rocky Ford, Colorado.
One is annotated, in pencil, "Rocky Ford."
Labeled: "Hueneme Starch Factory".
The labor records consist of union agreements, work classification and wage scales, crew and rate sheets, and files for grievances, retirement and pension matters, arbitrations, and miscellaneous subjects. None of these materials antedates the mid-1930s, when the factories were unionized.
The
Both the union agreements file and the crew and rate sheets file also contain a variety of labor-related correspondence. This correspondence concerns such topics as salary increases, sick leave, overtime pay, and the filling of positions with new personnel. Most of the correspondence is intra-company, but there is also correspondence between American Crystal's management and that of Holly and Spreckels, and between American Crystal management and union officials. There is almost no correspondence with union members themselves. Of special note is correspondence (1941-1945) with the National War Labor Board relating to its regulatory functions and correspondence (1955-1960) relating to the switch to a 40-hour work week.
The
The
The arbitration file also contains a copy of "Compendium of Interpretations of the Master Contracts," [ca.1968]. The compendium includes the minutes of three meetings held between February 25, 1960 and October 27, 1965, between representatives of Holly, Spreckels, and American Crystal and representatives of the United Sugar Workers Council of California to discuss interpretations of the labor contract. The compendium also contains summaries of the proceedings and texts of the arbitrator's awards in nineteen arbitration cases in which Holly, Spreckels, or American Crystal was a party. These arbitrations date from July 28, 1953 to February 7, 1967; only one of them involved American Crystal.
The
Pamphlets.
Correspondence regarding personnel policies for intercampaign factory watchmen.
The Minnesota Sugar Company with its plant at Chaska, Minnesota, was purchased by the American Beet Sugar Company in 1925. Its records include minutes of the board of directors, executive committee, and stockholders meetings; journals, ledgers, and miscellaneous financial records; reports; and correspondence.
Minutes of all meetings are bound chronologically in two volumes, along with the articles of association and bylaws of the company. They are complete for the period of the company's existence (1911-1925) and record the decisions made by the board of directors and executive committee on matters such as authorizations for loans and purchases, and price-setting for the purchase of beets. The stockholders meeting minutes record the annual elections of the board of directors, and note reports and resolutions presented.
The journals contain daily records of all financial transactions, while the ledgers reorganize the same data by accounts. An alphabetical index to accounts appears at the end of each ledger. Also included is a trial balance (1913-1915). The journals and ledgers are nearly complete, although there are gaps of months and years, and some volumes overlap chronologically.
Other financial records include: common and preferred stock registers (1912-1924), which are quarterly alphabetical listings of the name, address, number of shares, and dividends of each stockholder; a payroll register (1923-1924); an accounts payable book and cash disbursement book (companion set, 1924-1925); and a cashbook (1917-1918).
There are three reports relating to the company, dating from the early 1920s. A "Classification of Accounts" report (1923) provides a revised list of general ledger accounts. The two other reports evaluate the company's worth and potential as of 1924, just prior to its sale to American Beet Sugar. An eight-page report by the Honolulu Iron Works Company presents an assessment of the need for repairs and additions to the physical plant, data on the appraised value of the company, a survey of the agricultural potential of the Chaska region, and general conclusions about the company's future potential. A twelve-page report by a New York accounting firm presents a financial analysis of the company, including balance sheets, comparative loss and profit accounts, statements of annual profits and dividends, and statements of costs of production.
There is one folder of company correspondence (1925), primarily with banks relating to loan and stock matters, and with the American Beet Sugar Company relating to the dissolution of the Minnesota Sugar Company.
See also the records of the predecessor corporation, Carver County Sugar Company.
For each pay period, lists employees' names, hours worked, rate of pay, total paid, and check number.
Monthly tabulations of aggregated account credits and debits.
A companion set.
Notes payable and major bank account debits and credits. Labeled "Northern Sugar Corporation" on cover, and contains a few May, 1918, entries probably of that company.
Companion set.
Cash receipts and disbursements.
The Northern Sugar Corporation was incorporated on June 14, 1916. Its only beet processing factory was constructed in Mason City, Iowa in 1917. The American Beet Sugar Company purchased Northern Sugar in December 1924, at which time the corporation was officially dissolved. Its records include directors meeting minutes, stockholders meeting minutes, journals, ledgers, and miscellaneous financial records.
The directors' meeting minutes document the board's activities in arranging the construction of the Mason City factory, land and equipment purchases, and stock and bond matters. The minutes of the stockholders meetings record the elections of board members. The two sets of minutes, complete for 1916-1925, are bound together in a single chronological sequence.
The journals provide a daily record of all company financial transactions. Journal records are missing for 1916-1918. Two treasurer's journals record transactions relating to the company's loans, stocks, and bonds. The ledgers reorganize the journal data according to accounts (e.g., land expenses and beet seed sales); they are incomplete for 1916-1918.
Miscellaneous financial records include an accounts payable book (1924-1925), which is a daily list of the corporation's expenditures; a cash disbursements book (1924-1925), which is a chronological list of cash paid out for company expenditures; a cash book (1916-1918), and two treasurer's cash books (1922-1925), which contain daily records of cash disbursements and receipts; a cash received book (1924-1925); and an inventory (1917-1922) listing such things as equipment, machinery, office furniture, and beet and pulp stocks, along with the value of each item.
Also included are two 1924 reports: one, by the Honolulu Iron Works, evaluates Northern Sugar's physical plant, appraised value, and agricultural potential; the other, by a New York accounting firm, presents a financial analysis of the company.
Repeats some entries for Jan.-March, 1924.
Companion set.
Itemized annual inventories of equipment and supplies at each of the company's facilities.
The Carver County Sugar Company was organized in 1906 to construct and operate a sugar processing factory at Chaska, Minnesota. In 1911 the company's name was changed to the Minnesota Sugar Company.
Company records consist of journals (listing daily debits and credits), ledgers (monthly assignments of debits and credits to various acounts), and stock certificates.
The Amalgamated Sugar Company owned and operated six sugar processing factories in 1929, when the American Beet Sugar Company acquired a financial interest in it. Efforts to consolidate the two companies were unsuccessful, and in 1936 American Beet (now American Crystal) relinquished its common stock in Amalgamated in exchange for ownership of Amalgamated's Clarksburg, California and Missoula, Montana factories. The annual reports (1920-1957) summarize and sometimes discuss sugar production, income, expenses, improvements, stock transactions, financial status, and prospects for the next year. The statistical reports (1959-1962) provide information on agriculture (e.g., crop yields) and operations (e.g., labor rates and cost of supplies). Also included are manager's reports and superintendent's reports for each factory; these explain and discuss the agricultural and operating statistics.
The American Beet Seed Company was incorporated in August 1935 for the purpose of researching and developing sugar beet seed. It was capitalized at $100,000, all owned by the American Crystal Sugar Company. The five positions on its board of directors were filled by American Crystal officers and managers. The company was dissolved in June 1939. Records include articles of incorporation, bylaws, directors and stockholders minutes, and financial records.
The Arkansas Valley Agricultural Credit Corporation was incorporated on February 15, 1932, to make loans available to sugar beet farmers. Its board of directors included officers of the American Beet Sugar Company. In June 1936, its name was changed to the Western States Agricultural Credit Corporation. In September 1939, the corporation was dissolved.
Records of the corporation include articles of incorporation; bylaws; minutes; correspondence relating to stocks, taxes, and the dissolution of the company; stock certificates; and financial records.
The Chippewa Sugar Refining Company factory at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, was purchased by the American Beet Sugar Company in 1928. The company had been chartered in 1904 under the name Chippewa Sugar Company and was reorganized in 1916. The plant had been idle for several years prior to its sale. American Beet Sugar dismantled the factory and transferred its salvageable machinery to other factories, selling the rest for scrap. The factory site was sold in 1938. The Wisconsin Sugar Company, Menomonee (Waukesha County), Wisconsin is mentioned in several documents as an apparently affiliated company.
Records include articles of incorporation for all three companies; legal documents and correspondence relating to land deeds, mortgages, and bonds (1904-1928); and a map of Chippewa Falls (1926) and blueprint of the factory site (1928).
The Colorado Utah Investment Company was chartered on September 24, 1929. As a stock owner in the Amalgamated Sugar Company, which was owned by American Beet Sugar, it conveyed its entire stock subscription to American Beet. The company was dissolved on July 6, 1936.
The records reveal little about the company's operations. They include articles of incorporation, directors and stockholders minutes, correspondence and miscellany relating to financial matters and to the dissolution of the company, and tax returns.
The Mid Western Sugar Company was incorporated on January 7, 1928. On January 9, 1928, the original board of directors resigned and the vacancies were filled by officers of the American Beet Sugar Company. On January 27, 1928, the corporation received the property of a Belmond, Iowa sugar processing factory (formerly owned by the Iowa Valley Sugar Company) from the General Securities Company in exchange for its assumption of the factory's financial obligations. In August of that year Mid Western conveyed the company to American Beet, which took over operation of the factory. Thereafter Mid Western continued to exist as a corporation without any real function until March 1936, when it was dissolved.
The records of the corporation include the minutes of the board and of stockholders meetings, which document the transactions outlined above; the articles of incorporation and bylaws, appended to the minutes; correspondence (1928-1929) relating to land deeds and stocks; correspondence (1936) relating to the dissolution of the company; stock certificates; and tax returns.
The Minnesota Sugar Corporation was incorporated on October 23, 1925, within a year of American Beet's purchase of the Minnesota Sugar Company, which had a partially constructed factory at East Grand Forks. American Beet continued construction and made arrangements to sell the completed factory to the Minnesota Sugar Corporation for $1,050,000 in cash and all of the corporation's stock ($500,000 worth of preferred and 7,400 shares of common). The corporation then leased the factory back to American Beet. The corporation drew its board members from American Beet's board of directors and executive committee. After its establishment and financial organization in 1925 and 1926, the corporation functioned minimally, serving only to provide the new factory with a separate financial organization to protect the parent company in the event of failure. The corporation was dissolved in October 1936, and its assets were liquidated and turned over to the only stockholder, the American Beet Sugar Company.
Records of the Minnesota Sugar Corporation include minutes of the directors and stockholders meetings, bound chronologically into a corporate record book along with the articles of incorporation and bylaws. Notable entries in the directors' minutes include the American Beet proposition to sell the factory and the arrangements to lease it back to American Beet (November 19, 21, and 28, 1925), and the dissolution of the company.
The records also include correspondence and financial miscellany, relating mostly to the corporation's bonds and bank loans, and various stock and bond records.
For canceled bonds.
The Red River Sugar Company was incorporated on June 5, 1924, to provide a separate corporate structure through which the Minnesota Sugar Company could construct a new sugar processing factory in East Grand Forks. On June 20, 1924, the Minnesota Sugar Company conveyed lands near East Grand Forks to the Red River Sugar Company in exchange for 15,000 shares of Red River stock, and plans were made to sell additional stock publicly in the Red River Valley. On January 27, 1925, after difficulties in selling the stock, the company's directors decided to turn the company's assets over to the Minnesota Sugar Company.
The corporate record book contains directors minutes documenting the transactions outlined above; articles of incorporation and bylaws; and related certifications.
The Riverside Land and Canal Company was incorporated on April 9, 1903, by James G. Hamilton, secretary of the American Beet Sugar Company, and three other incorporators, to purchase land and develop it by constructing buildings, roads, and irrigation ditches. On April 23, 1903, the company agreed to purchase 2,400 acres near Lamar, Colorado from Henry Oxnard. In January 1905, it purchased an additional 3,000 acres in the same area from Oxnard.
The Las Animas Sugar Company was incorporated on April 15, 1907. In June its board of directors accepted an offer from the Riverside Land and Canal Company to sell 5,000 acres of land near Lamar and its water rights in exchange for $499,000 worth of stock in the sugar company. In August 1907, Las Animas made an agreement with the American Beet Sugar Company by which American Beet would convey to Las Animas lands on which to construct a sugar processing factory. As payment, American Beet would receive $1,000,000 in Las Animas Sugar Company bonds. The agreement included a provision that Las Animas would lease back to American Beet all of its lands and property, including the new factory, for 25 years. The original board of directors resigned and was replaced by a board composed of officers from American Beet. Thereafter the company functioned primarily as the lessor of the Las Animas factory until it and its owner, Riverside Land and Canal Company, were dissolved in September 1916.
Records include the directors and stockholders minutes for each company. The Riverside Land and Canal Company directors' minutes include notation of decisions to buy Oxnard's land and to sell land to the Las Animas Sugar Company, and of the board's actions relating to stock and water rights. The stockholders minutes contain copies of the articles of incorporation and the bylaws as well as a record of the annual election of the board.
There are also two ledgers of the Riverside Land and Canal Company, which arrange all data relating to the company's financial transactions according to corporate accounts.
The Las Animas Sugar Company directors' minutes contain entries relating to the purchase of land from Riverside (June 7, 1907), its lease of property to American Beet (August 15, 1907), and miscellaneous actions relating to stocks, bonds, and water rights. A copy of the mortgage agreement to finance the factory purchase and a copy of the factory lease are appended to the minutes. The stockholders minutes record the annual election of the directors and the stockholders approval of purchases and leases. The articles of incorporation and the bylaws are appended to the stockholders minutes.
Labeled "Riverside Land and Canal Company"; contains entries for Riverside, 1909-1916, and Las Animas, 1913-1919.
The Valley Land and Sugar Company was a subsidiary of the Amalgamated Sugar Company.
This series consists of annual reports of other beet and cane sugar producing companies, many of them direct competitors of the American Crystal Sugar Company in the United States market. Records were retained because information on these companies is often not readily available.
The beet contracts (1891-1948) are blank forms for the annual agreements between the American Crystal Sugar Company and individual farmers for the company's purchase of beets. The contracts provide blanks for the name of the farmer, the number of acres to be grown, and the county in which the acreage is located. The contracts establish a scale by which the price to be paid per ton of beets is determined by their sugar content. The contracts also stipulate conditions under which the beets should be grown and delivered. Each American Crystal factory issued its own contracts. The contracts are arranged by factory and thereunder chronologically. Also included is a summary of beet contract prices and terms, by factory, for each year from 1891 to 1948.
The miscellaneous records consist of files, reports, financial materials, and miscellany that did not belong to other series in the collection, and of transcripts and correspondence pertaining to federal government investigations of the beet sugar industry. They include scattered records of American Crystal's predecessor companies and factories at Grand Island, Norfolk, Oxnard, and Rocky Ford; and reports or data on the beet sugar industry in the United States and Europe, beet seed research, and beet sugar prospects in Montana.
Records of funds advanced to farmers for pre-harvest expenses, and related crop mortgage and contract documents and correspondence.
Merit certificates issued to American Crystal for its annual and financial reports.
Mimeographed reports of American Crystal's research operations, with extensive data on seed production, variety and plot tests, and experiments.
Mimeographed compilation of financial and production data about the United States beet sugar industry, in general and by state, and a directory of United States and Canadian sugar processing companies and industry organizations.
Found in Rocky Ford files.
Background data on the Crookston plant and on American Crystal, news releases and other publicity materials, the dedication program, newspaper clippings, and photographs.
Typescript (carbon copy) reports, with maps, on irrigation systems in the Arkansas River Valley, Colorado. Apparently prepared for American Beet by the Pueblo-Rocky Ford Irrigation Company, Pueblo, Colorado.
Typescript (carbon copy) report, including charts, diagrams, sketches, and photographs, on the equipment and operations of sugar beet processing factories in Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain, and France.
For a continuous weighing system for proposed Drayton plant.
Typescript (carbon) copies or transcriptions of Spreckles Sugar Company letters and reports regarding analyses of diseased beets and soils and attempts to identify and treat the blight. Origin unknown; found with other Grand Island records.
Oxnard Beet Sugar Company production statements submitted to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
For construction of warehouse and processing facilities at Grand Island.
Of Holland-American Land- and Immigration-Company [sic], Nos. 438-442.
Letters and receipts.
Financial miscellany.
Letters, legal documents, and financial miscellany.
Paid by American Beet.
Many from Europe.
Faded and nearly illegible.
Data on farmers, acreage, irrigation, farm equipment, and start-up costs.
Correspondence among American Beet officials and with other sugar processing companies, and production statistics.
Appears to be draft text of a handbook for prospective laborers, along with correspondence relating to it.
Register for American Crystal guest lodgings.
Lengthy typescript report, with photographs, on the geography, climate, economy, labor situation, and agricultural nature of the area, prepared to assess the feasibility of establishing the sugar beet industry there. Prepared for Amalgamated Sugar Company.
These files comprise correspondence of, and letters and memos routed to, American Crystal president W. N. Wilds, 1938-1941, gathered for a 1941 Justice Department investigation into sugar brokers and sugar transportation.
Transcripts of a series of hearings conducted by a commission of inquiry to investigate the costs of producing sugar beets in California and determine a fair profit to the grower.
Printed agreements, price lists, regulations, statistics, and circular letters regarding the control of sugar prices and distribution by the federal government during World War I.
List, with brief data, of factories erected and removed each year.
The photograph (1898-1976) collection consists of approximately 3,000 photographs, half in albums and half loose in folders. Geographically, the photographs cover all of the company's processing facilities as well as their tributary agricultural areas. Many of the loose prints are accompanied by negatives and some are dated and described on the back.
The seventeen albums are the work of professional photographers. Except for two volumes of miscellaneous photographs, each album contains photographs associated with a particular factory, group of factories, or agricultural region.
Photographs of the Amity Dam and Canal, a Colorado irrigation project of the American Crystal Sugar Company; shows the dam and the canal at various spots. Approximately 50 photographs, 7" x 9".
Photographs of the factory exterior, the manager's residence, the beet storage shed, and the interior of the factory showing machinery such as boilers, evaporators, and granulators. Approximately 75 photographs, 7-1/2" x 9-1/2"; short descriptions are written on the borders.
Photographs of the exteriors of the three factories; construction of the pulp drier at Chino; and practice with the fire fighting equipment at Chino. Approximately 250 photographs, various sizes.
Photographs of factory construction, including ditch digging, wall building, and installation of machinery. Approximately 180 photographs, 9-1/2" x 11-1/2"; most have identification labels written or typed onto them.
Photographs of tractors working in the fields and of field laborers planting, thinning, and harvesting. Approximately 100 photographs, various sizes.
Photographs of beet fields, field laborers, tractors, and farm implements. Approximately 50 photographs, various sizes; some are labeled.
Photographs of beet fields, field laborers, tractors, and beet dumps. Approximately 80 photographs, 8" x 9-3/4".
Photographs of the construction of the Northern Sugar Corporation factory at Mason City. Approximately 100 photographs, 8" x 10".
Photographs of factory construction, the Winnebago River flood [1916?], and the factory exterior; also, postcards showing other sugar factories and beet fields in several locales. Approximately 80 photographs, various sizes, and 16 postcards, 3-1/2" x 5-1/4".
Photographs of construction of the Moorhead plant showing the building's steel framework, construction of the walls and roof, and installation of factory machinery. Approximately 300 photographs, 8" x 10"; many are labeled.
Photographs showing construction of the factory, factory machinery, factory exterior, beet loading operations and cattle ranching near the factory, and the snowstorm at Rocky Ford in November, 1930. Approximately 90 photographs, various sizes; some have descriptive labels pasted next to them.
Photographs of farm houses; livestock; alfalfa, oat, and pea fields; and horse-drawn plows. Approximately 40 photographs, 8" x 10".
Photographs of farm operations at these factories, including livestock, beet loading, and oat threshing. Approximately 100 photographs, various sizes.
Photographs of factory exteriors at Oxnard, Grand Island, Rocky Ford, and Chaska; photographs of sewer additions to Oxnard and a new office building at Rocky Ford; factory interior photographs showing filters, pulp driers, and other machinery; and photographs of the Amalgamated Sugar Company factory at Nyssa, Oregon. Approximately 150 photographs, various sizes.
The loose photographs are organized alphabetically by topic, event, or factory location. Most are filed under a factory name, further subdivided by topic, primarily
The
The
The
There are also photographs of livestock operations, irrigation, social events, and agricultural exhibits.
Most of the loose photographs are snapshots (1940s-1970s) taken by farmers or factory personnel. There are, however, various groups of professional photographs, some dating from the 1920s and 1930s. Most notable is a 1918 photograph of Henry Oxnard and his brothers. Others include photographs of the Chaska, Clarksburg, Grand Island, Missoula, Moorhead, and Oxnard factories, and factory construction photographs of Crookston (1954), Moorhead (1948), and Oxnard (1898). There are also photographs of field laborers and field labor housing at Chaska, East Grand Forks, Missoula, Oxnard, and the Red River Valley.
The photographs have been foldered in groups as originally assembled by American Crystal personnel. Folder titles and dates were taken primarily from information found on the original wrappings or enclosures. Where these could be verified or corrected by data written onto the photographs themselves, this was done. Many dates or date spans, in particular, remain approximate or unverified.
Al Skuderna photographs.
Compiled by Gutleben for
With news release.
Photographs of fields, factories, and personnel, apparently collected by Zitkowski.
The miscellaneous printed materials comprise a variety of sugar industry publications, including periodicals, pamphlets, and books arranged alphabetically by title. Much of the material was published by American Crystal Sugar.
The file contains fairly complete sets of four beet sugar industry publications for farmers:
Also included are copies of American Crystal's employee magazine,
Other printed materials include technical manuals on sugar processing, materials concerning agriculture, such as beet harvester brochures and beet labor pamphlets, industry publications and reference books, and various American Crystal Sugar advertising and public relations publications.
Printed by the C. F. Hoeckel B. B. Company, Denver.
American Beet Sugar Company. Printed; with typed and handwritten addenda.
American Beet Sugar Company. Printed [index to accounts?].
American Beet Sugar Company. Printed; with typed and handwritten addenda of later date.
Later version of the 1909 volume above.
Similar to volume above.
American Beet Sugar Company. Printed; with typed addenda and circulars from the comptroller (1917-1918).
Composite of printed instructions (1919) and typed circulars from the comptroller or auditor (1918-1924).
Mimeographed circulars, nos. 1-103, from the comptroller or auditor.
American Crystal Sugar Company. Primarily mimeographed, with typed addenda.
American Crystal Sugar Company. Printed.
Printed minutes of meetings of American Beet Sugar Company agricultural force, Oxnard factory. Those for 1919 are entitled Agricultural Club of California. See also Oxnard Factory Employees Club minutes, listed below.
Directory published annually by the United States Beet Sugar Association, containing data on U.S. and Canadian companies.
Published by the Farmer Cooperative Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (FCS Information 98).
Three issues of a mimeographed newsletter: Vol. 1, No. 13, Dec. 14, 1982; Vol. 2, No. 1, Jan. 27, 1983; and Vol. 2, No. 6, May 27, 1983.
The
Includes photographs, slides, and brochures regarding equipment (primarily harvesters) of the following manufacturers or brand names: Parma, Hesston, Heath, Farmhand, John Deere, Alloway, Westgo, Donahue, Yanmar, Tillerod, Brillion, and Frontier Inc. Most apparently acquired (1976) from the manufacturers by Terry Brown for an article in
American Crystal Sugar Company brochure describing housing and working conditions for field laborers in the various factory districts.
Information for migrant field laborers on work in the "Great Western Territory" (Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana). Possibly published for Great Western Sugar Company.
Published by E. C. Hamilton, Chino, California. Peffer was affiliated with the Chino Valley Beet Sugar Company.
Educational pamphlet on proper methods of sugar beet cultivation and crop management. Apparently prepared as a companion to exhibits and demonstrations on the "Sugar Beet Special Train," a cooperative venture of the American Beet Sugar Company and the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railways.
American Crystal Sugar Company personnel manual for seasonal ("campaign") employees.
Produced by the publishers of
Photocopy of article on American Crystal Sugar Company president.
Clipping of pages 4-5.
A looseleaf information service of the United States Sugar Manufacturers' Association (later U.S. Beet Sugar Association). Articles, tables, and maps, generally compiled, extracted, or reprinted from other publications. Includes a few other miscellaneous items (1945-1950).
Photocopy of pamphlet; no title page.
Clipping.
Published by American Crystal Sugar Company. Issues from 1947 to 1963 are titled
American Crystal Sugar Company publication for employees.
Informational handbook for workers, in Spanish and English, published for the American Beet Sugar Company.
In the shape of two sugar beets.
American Crystal Sugar Company pamphlet for consumers; includes several recipes.
American Crystal Sugar Company pamphlet.
Fold-out color brochure.
Written and compiled by G. A. Bonstetter; issued by American Beet Sugar Company.
Published by American Crystal Sugar Company, probably for the dedication of the new East Grant Forks plant in September, 1976. Contains photographs and historical narrative.
Brochure prepared by the Florida Sugar Cane League, Inc.
Teacher's manual for a film strip by the Sugar Research Foundation.
Subtitle: "Methods of Analysis and Data used in the Technical Control of the American Beet Sugar Company's Factories." Original edition (1917) and revised edition (1925).
Great Western Sugar Company fiftieth anniversary booklet.
Concerning mechanization of beet culture and use of herbicides (particularly Monsanto's
Printed pamphlet.
Also represented by a reprint which identifies the author as E. W. Mayo, Jr., editor of
Describes uses of new building, with floor plans.
American Crystal Sugar Company mimeographed publication, compiled and edited by I. W. Reed, Rocky Ford.
Printed. The 1920 volume includes minutes of the Oxnard Factory Staff Council, 1919-1920. See also Agricultural Minutes, listed above.
American Beet Sugar Company pamphlet. Note on cover: Compiled from articles written by A. W. Skuderna, Superintendent, Agricultural Research, and published at the request of farmers of the Arkansas Valley [of Colorado].
Advertising leaflet directed toward retailers.
Information pamphlet published by the United States Beet Sugar Association.
Mimeographed article by a member of the Advisory Board, Greater Iowa Commission.
Poster showing steps in sugar beet processing, published by the United States Beet Sugar Association.
Promotional booklet published by the Sugar Research Foundation, Inc.
Subtitled "The Root of Success." Journal published by Northern Sugar Corporation (1924-1925), American Beet Sugar Company (1925-1931), and Amalgamated Sugar Company (1930, 1942-1960).
One issue of a monthly journal published by the Sugar Beet Journal Publishing Company, San Francisco.
Published by Farmers and Manufacturers Beet Sugar Association, Saginaw, Michigan.
Teacher's guide published by United States Beet Sugar Association.
Great Northern Railway brochure showing field machinery.
Published monthly by the Sugar Journal, Inc., New Orleans.
Published by Palmer Publishing Corporation, New York.
Newsletter of the International Council of Sugar Workers and Allied Industries Unions. Apparently complete from Vol. 1, No. 1 (August 1956) to Vol. 5, No. 3 (April-May 1960); plus Vol. 1, No. 1 (August 1960) of a new series, reflecting the merger of the Sugar Workers Union with the American Federation of Grain Millers (forming the Sugar Division), and thus a new publisher. Also includes
Great Western Sugar Company publication containing articles on all aspects of the beet sugar industry and Great Western activities in particular.
Fold-out pamphlet showing steps in sugar beet production, illustrated with photographs.
A compilation by the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages of editorials, resolutions, bulletins, and other protests against the proposed increase in the tariff on sugar.
"Buy Missoula."
Summary of American Crystal Sugar Company salary administration program.
Clipping.
"Quick, Name this Brand."
Poster giving text of N.R.A. Code No. L.P. 1.
Published by Prairie West Publications, Wahpeton, North Dakota.
Poster.
Published by the Western Sugar Beet Growers Association, Inc., Fargo, North Dakota. Three issues: Vol. 1, No. 3 (December 1963); Vol. 1, No. 4 (March 1964); and Vol. 2, No. 1 (May 1964).
Separate print of one in a series of advertisements regarding regional industries, sponsored by the Denver National Bank.
The clippings files reproduced on these microfilm rolls consist of newspaper articles relating to the American Crystal Sugar Company and its predecessors, collected sporadically by company officials to document activities at various company facilities. Most of the articles are from newspapers in towns where the company operated a factory. The articles discuss growing conditions, beet harvests, migrant labor, beet processing campaigns, and activities of commercial clubs and farmers' organizations in the area. They date largely from the 1920s, with a smaller group centering on the early 1950s, and are arranged by factory location or region.
The clippings were microfilmed to permanently preserve their informational content. The originals were subsequently returned to the company.
Beet sugar factory opening edition.
American Crystal Sugar Company feature edition.
Factory opening edition.