The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1936-01-24
PROSPECTS FoR Beet
q FACTORY GOOD

SOSAK fA\
Two Hundred and Fifty Attend the
Sugar Factory Dinner and
Meeting, Monday. .
About $50 beetgrowers and bust
ness men of Hardin gathered in
the assembly room of the Hardin
primary grade school building.
Monday evening, when a banquet
and speaking program was put on
under the sponsorship Of the Har-
din Lions club, in honor Of w. T..
Lawson of Colorado Springs, Colo,
vice-president and general mar
ager Of the Holly Sugar Corpora
ton. who spent several days of
the past week here, making q
survey of the Bio Horn and Little
Horn valleys with a view to de-
termining the possible acreage
that might be devoted to the
growing of sugar beets. in the
event a sugar factory should be
built at Hardin.
After full justice had been done
to the toothsome chicken dinner
prepared and served by the La
dies Aid of the Hardin Baptist
church, DR.. w. A. ,Ransier, presi-
dent of the Hardin Lions club,
called upon H. w. Bunston, chair
man of the beet sugar factory
committee of the Hardin Lions
club and the Big Horn County
Beet Growers association to act
as POSTMASTER.
Toastmaster Bunston, after a
few Introductory remarks intro
duced DR.. W. A. Ransier, as presi-
dent of the Hardin Lions club
who, in a few well chosen words
extended a hearty welcome to the
beet growers and business men
not members of the Lions club.
The POSTMASTER then introduced
the Hardin Trio, comprising Harry
Pattison, Cecil Ross and Gordon
Brekke, with Miss Marian Brckke
at the piano, who sang Two num-
bers, Girl of My Dreams" and
Doing the Uptown, Lowdown."
These boys were last Sunday
awarded first prize for the sing
ing of these two songs over the
Billings radio station, KGFL, dIl-
ing the Sawyer Stores Amateur
hour, the week before.
As the next number on the
program, the POSTMASTER said he
was going to call on a man who
had homesteaded in the Big Hora
valley, then graduated into a Har-
din business man and who since
had farmed by proxy, Charles s.
Elder, Hardin'S pioneer hardware
merchant. MIR. Elder, in a very
interesting manner, gave a resume
of the various efforts put forth
during the past 70 years towards
securing a sugar factory for var
din. Figuratively speaking. he
said Hardin had built more sugar
factories than any other town in
the country-around the banquet
table. In 1914, lie said. the Big
Horn and Little Horn valley farm
ers signed up agreements to grow
about 300 acres of sugar beets for
a factory to be built at Sheridan,
Wyo., but the project fell through.
Later on they did get a factory at
Sheridan, and the Hardin terri
tory grew for it, the first year.
less than $50 acres of beets. How
ever, the acreage was increased
from year to year and, Ii 1918,
Superintendent Ogborn of the
Sheridan Sugar Co. on Aug. 20 of
that year bought Ills acres of
land about a mile northeast of
Hardin, as a factory site. These
holdings became the property of
the Holly Sugar Corporation,
which felt that there was not in
this territory at that time a suf-
ficient acreage devoted 70 the
growing Of beets to Justify the
erection OF a factory here.
Mr.. Elder told of the building,
though the efforts of the Hardin
Chamber of Commerce, of the ~
miles of railroad down the valley,
north of Hardin, on which to
haul the beets to the Burlington
railroad in Hardin, and of the
putting in of a drainage system
to keep the irrigated land Of the
valley from begging. He also
told of how Hardin Just missed
having a railroad south from Har-
din to the Soap Creek oil field, the
project falling through after sew
eral carloads of ties and other
equipment were on the siding at
Hardin. He considers the Big
Horn valley one of the best in
the northwest and is sure taat
the time has arrived when Har-
din's dream of a beet sugar fac
tory is soon to be a reality. In
closing Mr.. Elder urged united ef-
fort on the part of the people OF
this valley to work out a plan
whereby longer term leases NAV
be obtained on the irrigated land
on the Crow Indian reservation
and expressed the belief that the
Holly Sugar Corp, which has beer
fair in the past, now that our
acreage: which was around $500
acres the past year and will ex-