Way back when our kids were growing up the Holly Sugar Factory still operated here and farmers in the area grew sugar beets for a cash crop. Not only did they grow the beets, but the factory hired many farmers to help process the beets into sugar. The job was a very welcome thing—fall and winter (sometimes until March) employment. Right during the time many farmers had to be very careful with their money.
Farming gives you ONE paycheck a year…yes, one per crop you grow. This is the money that a farm family lives on and uses to purchase all the necessities, pay the taxes, and pay the huge irrigation bill plus to start and continue farming until the crop ‘comes in and is sold’.
If you know what a once a month paycheck is like to stretch – try a once a year paycheck! Then get all your expenses out to start your business all over again in the spring and carry you over until the crop is sold. Sure can be hard at times.
Holly Sugar was a great and wonderful thing for ‘tiding’ a farm family over—not only did they buy your crop … paid on the sugar content of your beet…poor beets poor paycheck…rich in sugar beets really nice paycheck. They hired four shifts of men and sometimes women for certain jobs. The pay was always very welcome…you work you get paid.
Holly Sugar left town in the 70’s. It was sad for everyone.
Sugar Beet harvest always started in October giving the beets a chance to get cold so the sugar content in the beets would rise. Many times the harvest happened in wet, frozen, turned to mud fields. Right along side the corn harvest and the apple harvest and the turning of the leaves.
This is the way our local farmers used to bring their sugar beets to market. This photo shows a line-up of wagons loaded with beets waiting their turn to dump their load at the Delta beet dump. Beets were dumped directly into open rail cars prior to 1921, and after the factory was built in Delta, they were dumped at the factory site where they were transferred mechanically to the processing at the facility.
My sweet corn is ready for picking so I’m off to start my tiny harvest of sweet corn. When winter comes we will enjoy rich, golden, sweet, sweet corn once in awhile. A small delicious reminder of summer.
Have a good one my friends!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
I had never thought about the once a year paycheck. Remarkable people.
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wow. that market line is pretty amazing.
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They have a few sugar beet plants West of us 65 miles or so. And in Idaho. Oh my they stink to high heaven! Its so true about the once a year pay check. Our big check comes when we sell our calves in the fall. We have all but a handful of steers sold. That paycheck pays for everything. You have to be frugal even in the best of times, cuz ya just never know whats comin down the pike! 🙂
Enjoy the sweet corn! 🙂
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In the early 70’s my Dad worked as the scale operator at the factory there in Delta. He weighed the trucks as they arrived loaded and then again after they dumped their load. As he waited in between trucks he would carve busts of different drivers out of a beet using his pocket knife. The drivers enjoyed seeing their likenesses in the beets. When my dad brought some of his artwork home I was tempted by the sweet smell and bit the nose off of one of the faces. That was how I developed a “taste” for the arts.
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Interesting!! And you are so right about only getting paid once a year and making that last the whole 12 months till the next one. And so many things can happen unexpectedly in farming, too. It’s definitely not a way of life for the weak hearted!!
When I lived in Colorado in the late 60’s, early 70’s, on the eastern slope, there were lots of sugar beets, but didn’t really know much about them.
Very hot here the next few days–100* forecasted for every day. Irrigating will begin again soon.
Blessings!
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I love Mark’s comment about the beet busts! I just did 2 bushels of sweet corn and that was enough for me for now! It was a pain to do but I am looking forward to having it in the winter.
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Thanks for some interesting history and the education about the economics of farming.
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An excellent story – and timely, too. Trains Magazine had an article in their June issue about the Santa Maria Valley Railroad in California and how the closing of the Betteravia, California Holly Sugar Beet Processing Facility (an on-line shipper) nearly killed the railroad.
What you said about farming helps to explain corporate control of the food market and reminds us of how important that the Grange and co-ops used to be for farmer survival between harvests.
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Farming in the little valley where I live used to be the same. Davis Ranch changed all that by building a farm store that sells directly to customers on the busy highway that goes through here. They open in late April now, with asparagus, go through the summer with a variety of crops – but mostly sweet corn, carry through October and early November with pumpkins and fall decoration crops (a variety of gourds, haystalks, small bales of straw) and finish with Christmas trees from Thanksgiving to Christmas. There is no middle man, there is a weekly paycheck for the farmers and the many, many workers that are needed. It has allowed those of us who own a little farm land but are not farmers ourselves to lease our land for a good purpose. Nothing is wasted. The workers get to take a lot of food home every day and one of the farmers’ wives started a nonprofit that channels tons and tons of fresh vegetables to local food banks and charities. All the local people who want a job have one. There’s a lot farmers can accomplish if they can get it done. It’s not easy, and it certainly isn’t the safest approach. On second thought, maybe it IS safer in the long run than selling to agribusiness and dealing with banks.
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I’m headed up to Pueblo to see if any local corn is ready. It was soooo good last year and I need some bad!
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Sad that they don’t make the sugar any more. I think I remember the brand.
I’ve said it before, thanks for all you do. ♥
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Interesting story of another age.Just seeing all those wagons lined up shows you a totally different technology. Yes I remember the one paycheck a year. We did milk a few cows and had a few hens.
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Great old photo! Two years I drove for the Beet harvest in the Red River Valley, hard work but good pay when the kids were small..and needed extra dental work:)
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Thought -provoking as ever, Linda
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Linda, I love these stories of the way things used to be. They are just beautiful. I also really respond to your comments about how a farm family lives, the stresses…the joys…the constant challenges. I’ve always wondered about that…about how it takes a certain kind of person…my husband and I both work freelance. It’s not the same, exactly, but we do know the stress of being victim to markets and factors outside your control. When it’s good, it’s good. When it’s tough, it’s really really tough. But you sort of become one with your choices…and you wouldn’t change it for anything. When we buy sugar in the store, it’s usually from cane, right? Do they still make sugar from beets? And, if so, where on earth do you buy/find it? Does it taste any different? Sorry for the load of questions…but you make me curiouser and curiouser…have a great day.
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What an absolutely fascinating photograph of sugar beet being taken to the factory Linda. When I was a child I lived in Lincolnshire in the UK – it was a great sugar beet county and the lorries carrying it to the sugar beet factories used to be roaring through the village night and day at a certain time of the year. I don’t think anyone grows it any more. The land is now used for vegetables like peas and beans and cauliflowers. And almost all of the factories are closed.
Round here we are all grassland farms and our income comes from rearing sheep and cattle and selling them at the market. There are still some dairy farms (we used to be dairy) and when a farm comes up for sale a dairy farmer usually buys it to make his farm larger so that he can buy more cattle.
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Very interesting history (I love the way you teach us so painlessly about the history of your area ). Well and actually you teach us so much about farm life…Probably I was supposed to have learned some of that in school, but it was taught pretty dryly back then).
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Nice photo. It’s hard to imagine living on one paycheck per year. Thanks for sharing.
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I think I’ve told you this before, but I watched a PBS miniseries called The Farmer’s Wife some years back. I was astounded at the hardships and worry that little family faced. Gave me a new appreciation for just what y’all do. It’s ironic that the US couldn’t survive without farmers, and yet sometimes the farmers barely survive. 😦
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