The herald., 1897-04-25
A Great Enterprise Sue
cessfully Launched
ALAMIToS SUGAR COMPANY
FIELDS OF 1000 ACRES OF
SUGAR BEETS
Surrounding . Factory Equipped
With Most Modern Machinery.
A Great Industry

Draw a line from Signal hill, neal
Long Beach. to Anaheim. and one cross
ing this from orwalk to Anahein
Landing, and near where these inter
sugar factory and the new town o.
Alamitos. The place is nine miles from
Long Beach and the same distance
from Anaheim, seven miles from Nor
walk, and not quite so far from Ana
helm Landing. 1t is the center of trac!
of land difficult to match on any of the
five continents of the earth. The orig
inal Alamitos ranch contained about
q, 900 acres, stretching from the Cerritos
on the west to Los Coyotes on the east,
bounded south by the ocean, and COM
! ing northward to near Centralia. This
has been divided between the three
original owners in tracts of about 1000
acres each. Mr.. 1. w. Hellman owns
close to the ocean, Mrs. Bixby next, and
the Bixby Ranch company the most
northerly portion. The factory is placed
on this tract last referred to, close to
NISiS 1@OS <Ai6SASS oh0 Vi hA6S NOoii-
ties join at the Coyote creek. 1t is in
Orange county.
Anyone at all conversant with the
conditions of the country from the time
when the Spanish government. made
grants of these lands to the original
owners up to a few years ago knows
that these ranches were all sheep pas
lures. Los Coyotes was considered good
for nothing else. Los Bolsas was some
what more promising and Los Alamitos
has long held the reputation of being
a very fertile tract of land. For all that
it was an unbroken sheep and cattle
pasture until about four months ago.
A cattle pasture four months ago,
and what a transformation scene it is
today! AT the point indicated above a
large body of men have been at work
for some weeks putting up an immense
sugar factory. which is now enclosed
and most of the machinery is in place.
The Southern Pacific company has
built spur or branch from Anaheim,
has put up handsome depot, and runs
daily trains to the town of Los Ala
mitos. This town has a rural hotel,
kept in a very proper manner; stores,
a postoffice, streets laid out in order
and planted with shade trees, a water
system with a good head of water, and
many other features of a progressive
modern town. For eight and one-half
miles, extending from near Signal hill
to beyond the site of Alamitos town.
there are broad fields of many acres
each, all of the most vivid green. where
the sugar beets are now growing for
the campaign to begin some time next
July. There are in all $500 acres of
beets under cultivation for the use of
the new Iactory. Some of the fields
are now being thinned, and others are
just being seeded. The campaign will
last four or five months and the crop
must not ripen at once. The scene is
marvellous to one who can realize that
it is only four months since the ground
was first broken for the factory and the
first attempt was made to turn the vir-
gin sod and prepare it for the beet seed.
This land has been trodden for a cen
tury by millions of sheep and by hun
dreds of thousands of horses and cat
tie. 1t never felt the plowshare until
this spring. Yet when the sod was
turned, the disc-harrow run over ii,
and this followed by subsoil plowing
going ten inches deep. the rich, mellow
soil turned up fine and free as if it had
been cultivated for ages. Today the
ground stands free from weeds, light
and fine as a garden, and ribboned with
the delicate bright green of the sugar
beets, where the rows stretch straight
as an arrow for miles. 1t is beautiful
sight.
Iptrt r. Af t. @v,Ix