Mount Clemens Sugar Company


The Mount Clemens Sugar Company was a local venture in Mount Clemens, Michigan, which processed sugar beets into refined sugar, and which operated from 1901 until 1950.

History

Enticed by the success of a similar operation in Bay City, Michigan, in 1898, the Mount Clemens Chamber of Commerce sent Sheriff William F. Nank on a fact-finding mission. His report led to the foundation of the Mount Clemens Sugar Company, initially known as Macomb Sugar.
Local farmers were enlisted to plant a certain portion of their acreage with sugar beets. This crop was subsequently processed into granulated sugar and molasses. The first year’s production was unprofitable due to harvests delayed by heavy rains as well as substandard beets.
The company enjoyed several years of successful seasons, but a serious downturn occurred in 1913, when American trade policy allowed foreign sugar to enter the market free of tariff, “thereby threatening to destroy the domestic sugar industry. The trade policy was repealed when World War I engendered a sugar shortage and the U.S. Treasury felt the loss of revenue from the tariff.”
On 9 January 1920, a federal grand jury in Detroit handed down an indictment of the Mount Clemens Sugar Company and President James Davidson, charging sale of sugar at the excessive price of seventeen cents per pound.
Sugar production in Mount Clemens was given up as a lost cause after 1950. Freight rates for transporting beets had risen, the acreage available had dwindled as agricultural land was sold off for other industry and residential development. The War Department appropriated 200 acres of the company’s own land for expansion of Selfridge Air Force Base, and also required the factory to cut 100 feet off of the plant smokestack, the loss of which draft necessitated the installation of fans. The plant was subsequently abandoned, dismantled and salvaged.