The Anaheim Gazette was the major newspaper covering Orange County from the county’s formation through the first two decades of the 20th Century. Copies of it are available on microfilm at the Anaheim Historical Library. Much of the paper’s coverage of sugar beet news was reprinted in beet industry publications such as the Louisiana Planter.
Mid-July
The Alamitos factory will startup operations this week, and the beet fields have taken on a very lively air since the beginning of the week. The sugar tests are high .and there is no doubt the initial run of the big factory will be entirely successful. There are 3500 acres of beets planted for the Alamitos factory, and from some patches as high as eighteen tons per acre are looked for. While some of the Alamitos patches show signs of drying up, which is due to the fact that the land is new and was never broken up before, yet the average as a whole is eminently satisfactory, and many patches will go more than fifteen tons per acre. At an average of ten tons per acre, the Alamitos fields will yield 35,000 tons of beets. This added to the 35,000 tons which Mr. Hache estimates as the lowest figures of the yield hereabouts, will make 70,000 tons of beets raised in this valley this year. The basic price is $2.25 per ton of beets of 12 per cent., and 25 cents additional for each per cent, of saccharine above 12. If the average of the entire crop be 16 per cent, the beets will thus bring $4.25 per ton. At $4 the total tonnage of beets will aggregate a gross yield of $280,000.—Anaheim Gazette.
Los Alamitos, California.
July 23, 1897. Editor Louisiana Planter: The factory here has just turned out its first batch of beautiful, white granulated sugar, proving it to be a grand success in every particular. The Messrs. Clark Brothers are to be congratulated upon now having completed and in running order the best equipped and finest beet sugar factory in existence. The business end of this enterprise is being handled by Mr. J. Ross Clark, who has been associated with his brother, W. A. Clark, of Butte, Montana, in various successful business enterprises in that State. Under his able management the work of construction has proceeded without a h!tch. Just about nine months ago work was commenced on the foundation? of a plant which is now complete in every detail and is working uphundreds of tons of beets per day and turning out from its own refinery a finished product of the best quality, white granulated sugar. The business interests of the State are to be congratulated that the Clark Brothers, with their wealth and shrewd business judgment, have embarked in this enterprise, and too much can not be said in praise of their sagacity in commencing this work late last fall when the finances of the country were at such a low ebb and all business interests stagnant. They are certainly deserving of the success which seems to have crowned their efforts.
One notable feature of the construction of this factory is that all the material and all the machinery are of American manufacture, even to the beet knives, the machinery being designed and built by the firm of E. H. Dyer & Co., of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Edward F. Dyer of that firm is superintendent of the works, and it is owing to his skill, untiring industry and executive.ability that the enterprise has been brought to a successful issue and on time. Shepherd.