The Beet Sugar Boom of the White River Valley
An ambitious local entrepreneur outlines plans to transform King County farmland into a massive sugar production hub to compete with global markets.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A reporter had the pleasure of an interview with Mr. Alvord, a well-known farmer and businessman, regarding the sugar manufacturing industry in King County. Mr. Alvord stated, 'You are aware that a joint stock company has been formed for the purpose of manufacturing sugar from beets in this county. On the 16th instant, a meeting of the trustees of the Valley Sugar Company was held at Kent. We were instructed to contract for 25,000 tons of beets per annum for five years. Already, nearly five hundred acres have been pledged by farmers. A tract of land near a river for a factory has been selected at Alvord's place on the White River, so that freight can be taken to and from the factory either by the river route or by rail. The output of the works is intended to turn out 40,000 pounds of sugar per day. I recently visited Germany to investigate the beet sugar industry and I am convinced that we can manufacture sugar here as cheaply as they do in Germany. Mr. Alvord has for five years raised sugar beets with an average yield of 30 tons per acre. I raised 45 tons last year on two acres of land on my White River farm. All the valley land in the Sound is adapted to the raising of sugar beets.'
“I am convinced that we can manufacture sugar here as cheaply as they do in Germany, and successfully compete with any sugar manufacturers in the world.”
Long before tech campuses dominated the landscape, the White River Valley was the site of massive agricultural industrialization efforts. This 1886 vision of transforming Kent farmland into a high-tech manufacturing center mirrors the cyclical pressures Seattle faces today as its land use shifts from agriculture to industry to high-density development.
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