The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-25
THE REMARKABLE CAREER
Of SUGAR KING SPRECKELS
Poor Mans Progress to Great Riches.
From Grocery Clerk in Charles
ton, S. c. to Sugar Magnate.
Especial to the Advertiger.)

~ AN FRANCISCO, Jan. 16.-Claus
e Spreckels' recent activity in the
! lighting market of San Francisco,
has brought him again prominently be-
fore the east, which has large interests
| in California stocks.
| Spreckels has within the past rev
months won great victory over the old
gas company here, the San Francisco
Gas and Electric Company, which he,
with his Independent Electric and Power
/ Company. has been fighting for several
years past.
The New York Commercial. great
business daily of the metropolis, has the
following to say of Spreckels, which will
be interesting to the readers of the Adj
vertiser, as it deals with his career in
Hawaii:
Claus Spreckels was known a few years
ago as the sugar king of the Sandwich
Islands Today he is the sugar king of
the West. Past Y years of age, he is
still active, aggressive and originating.
He landed in Charleston, S. c., fifty
two years ago, coming from Hanover,
Germany. He was not educated, and
speechless in English. He worked in a
grocery III Charleston. In eighteen
months he owned it, and in 1855 moved
eggs for some months.
In 1856 he took his family to San Fran
cisco, and opened grocery store. Money,
was plentiful, gold was being dug out
of the earth in great masses ana
Spreckels was worth $50 900 in a few
years. He might have retired; instead he
bought a brewery. He sold it out for
$4,000 soon. When a grocer he had
thought much of sugar; now he bought
an interest in local refinery. He man
= npafi ra1x-
He put in new machinery and made it a
prosperous company. Finally he parted
with it at a very high price. Then he
went TO Germany and studied sugar and
sugar beets. He worked as laborer for
wages at Magdeburg for six weeks and
made himself familiar with every prac-
teal item of the industry. He learned
what has made him the master of the
business in the United States.
He returned to California and built the
California sugar refinery-hrst little
wooden structure. Within three years
the building was enlarged four times,
and at the end of the four years, an 1nl-
mense brick plant was up, turning out
500 tons of sugar a day Spreckeis was
now rich, but there were three other re-
fineries in San Francisco. He got them /
all, either by purchase or subsidies. he
invented new processes which reduced
the time of making hard sugar from
three weeks to twenty-four hours, and
for the first time the cube and crushed
sugar of today. Then he went to Ha-
wall. and made himself the owner of the
island product of sugar cane. This was
n 1876 when the first reciprocity treaty
between King Kalakaua and Uncle Sam
Hawaiian sugar free of duty
lad been signed. Spreckels found 10000
acres of land, considered worthless. He
lug a canal fourteen feet wide and three
eet deep to build aqueducts, pierced
hirty tunnels through solid rock, and
got water to his desert at cost of
800 600
He conquered Hawaii, industrially, and
became the greatest factor in the up
'uildng of latest Territory of the Unit
d States
He returned to California, and in 1883
vas the unquestionable sugar king of the
Pacific Coast Then the sugar trust got
fter him. The octopus offered him ST.
200 for his interests. He wouldn't SELL I
nd the fight was on. For while ,
preckelS was at decided disa 1vantage
he trust had numerous profits on its G
usiness in the Eastern States and could f
ell in California at a loss. Spreckels &
rent to Philadelphia and built the larg- I
st and most complete refinery in the {
yorld, at cost of s., 600, 900. He then fix q
q prices in all the Eastern markets of I
he trust, and became a very thorn in l
s side. Then the trust made terms and
preckels got control of the Pacific coast d
-ithout further friction e
Meanwhile he had established a steam
hip service between San Francisco and 7
honolulu and had got practical mo- '
opoly of the freight and passenger