I found this on the internet about beets Kenny Processed sugar had its origins in India about 500 B.C. A process was used to crush cane in a press, boil the pulp to evaporate the juice, and grind the rest into a dark brown powder that was called "karkara". The popularity of karkara spread as Indian traders sold this sugar to neighboring cultures. Both the product and the word slowly moved westward. The Arabic-speaking peoples of the Middle East gave the word karkara as "sukkur." It was from this word that European countries derived their forms of the word sugar. Europeans had little contact with processed sugar until the 11th century when the Crusaders brought samples of it back from their travels. This substance replaced honey as the choice of sweetener in Europe, especially among the royalty and nobility. They were the only ones who could afford to buy it. Since cane could not be grown outside tropical areas, Europeans of the Middle Ages had to rely on trade for their supplies. In 1744 a German chemist Andreas Marggraf experimented with a white beet root-the beta vulgaris-that was common in the Mediterranean region. Marggraf crystallized sugar from beet pulp In a process where brandy was used for extraction. Since beets could be grown in temperate climates, the benefits of Marggraf's work were enormous for farmers in Europe and North America. One of Marggraf's pupils expanded on his work and developed the first sugarbeet extraction factory in 1802. Another pupil began breeding new beet strains on a farm in Silesia. Their efforts became known and the British stepped in to seize the opportunity to also develop sugar in this manner. Napoleon Bonaparte gave orders in 1811 to build hundreds of small beet processing factories in France. Within two years, French farmers had planted nearly 80,000 acres of beet stock obtained from the Germans. The French processed about 35,000 tons of beet sugar by the end of 1813. However, when Napoleon fell, the young industry collapsed. The Germans, however, continued to develop their sugarbeet fields. The United States entered the picture in the 1830s when German-Americans produced sugar from beets. However, the idea was dropped when a tiny processing factory in Massachusetts turned out a poor product. Similar experiments failed in Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. In the middle of the 19th century, American looked at the prospects of developing sugar once again. It was in the west: California, Nebraska, Colorado and Utah where attempts were made. Mormon pioneers obtained seed to grow two acres of sugarbeets for seed in 1850. Two years later they shipped processing equipment from France. The processing factory was set up in Provo, UT, and later moved to an area in the Salt Lake Valley still known today as Sugarhouse. A liquid sugar was produced but the plant was abandoned in 1855. In 1870 the Dyer family built the first successful American beet sugar plant in Alvarado, CA, 22 miles east of San Francisco. Claus Spreckels, an entrepreneur who already controlled Hawaiian cane sugar production, built a second processing plant at Watsonville, CA, in 1880. Then the Oxnard brothers underwrote costs of the first beet plant in the American plains at Grand Island, NE, in 1890. In 1891 the first successful sugarbeet factory was established at Lehi, UT, by the Utah Sugar Company. It produced the first crystallized sugar in Utah. In 1901 several sugarbeet companies were operating small factories in Colorado. They processed 400-500 ton a day. The state later totaled 20 plants, the most of any state. Nearly 20 years later in 1910 some 398,000 acres of beets were produced in the U.S. and sold at an average of $5.45 a ton to the processors. The processors turned the beets into 4.1 million tons of sugar. The sugarbeet industry was on its way. It is still contributing to the economic well-being of many small towns in the farmlands of America-nearly 90 years later.