page_title: Utah-Idaho Sugar Company
section_title: Lehi factory
hierarchical_section_title: Utah-Idaho Sugar Company / Formation of Utah Sugar / Lehi factory
caption_attribution_description: English: "GV PLATE AND FRAME PRESSES. Utah Sugar Company, Garland Beet Sugar Refinery, Factory Street, Garland vicinity, Box Elder County, UT" Survey number HAER UT-19
context_page_description: The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company was a large sugar beet processing company based in Utah. It was owned and controlled by the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its leaders. It was notable for developing a valuable cash crop and processing facilities that was important to the economy of Utah and surrounding states. It was part of the Sugar Trust, and subject to antitrust investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Hardwick Committee.
context_section_description: A $400,000 sugar beet processing factory was constructed in Lehi, Utah. Utah Sugar had been comparing Lehi with American Fork as potential factory locations. The Lehi location was chosen because the city of Lehi offered 40 acres (160,000 m²) for a building site plus 1,500 acres (6.1 km²) of land for a beet farm, built a road to the location, bought stock in the company, gave perpetual water rights, and offered other incentives. As another benefit, the Rio Grande Western Railway and Union Pacific Railway passed nearby. "An uncharacteristically exuberant (by Mormon standards) celebration ensued", including bonfires of looted property and free barrels of beer. The location was chosen on November 18, 1890, and the cornerstone was laid on December 26, 1890. Wilford Woodruff was a speaker and a dedicatory prayer was offered by George Q. Cannon. 2000 people attended the cornerstone ceremony. 100 rail cars of machinery were delivered from Kilby Manufacturing Company Cleveland, Ohio to fill the factory, at a cost of $260,000. E. H. Dyer and Company from Cleveland was contracted to build the factory.
  The factory was ready for operation on October 12, 1891. Notable supervisors and managers of the plant included Edward F. Dyer (superintendent of first season, son of factory construction contractor E. H. Dyer, from Alvarado, California) and James H. Gardner, who served a Mormon mission to Hawaii, and acted as the sugar boiler for the first season.
  During the 1890s, the Utah Sugar Company was in financial distress, partly because stockholders were not making their stock subscription payments. Even before the factory was ready, the LDS Church intervened, making a $50,000 payment to the Dyers from collected tithing money. The factory was originally expected to be built for $300,000; it was recapitalized to $1 million on October 9, 1890. Lehi locals, including John Beck, Thomas R. Cutler, and John C. Cutler backed the company, but eight of the seventeen backers went bankrupt. After being approached by Cutler, then-current LDS church president Wilford Woodruff instructed the church to invest in the company. It became "a significant stockholder", making a $50,000 payment and a $130,000 loan. Cutler also went to Chicago and New York City to secure loans from banks; he came back, via train, with a bag full of money, as he did not think any banks in Utah could have cashed the large bank draft.
  The LDS church made more payments and secured more loans. In addition, George Q. Cannon and Heber J. Grant personally funded the enterprise. Joseph F. Smith, president of the LDS Church, gave a sermon in 1893 explaining that this was done to help employ Mormons. Bonds, intended to cover debt in 1893, did not sell, so the LDS church purchased them, then resold them to Joseph Banigan of Rhode Island. The church took a loss from this action, but did so to keep the company afloat. The church purchased another $85,200 in shares in 1896. Joseph F. Smith made it clear that Mormons who did not support Utah sugar, and instead bought less expensive imported sugar, were being unpatriotic and unwise, and failing to support efforts at home.
  The machinery in the factory was very dangerous, even by standards of the time. Children played in the factory, and one six-year-old was killed in 1898. Workers were injured and killed. A visiting German sugar maker said, "If you were in Germany you would be thrown in jail. You've got exposed machinery all over the place. You've got hazards every way you turn. Why, in Germany you would be having someone killed in a plant like this every day."
  Some officials wanted the company to expand into other Mormon territory, but the church did not have the finances to support it, especially when Lorenzo Snow became president of the church in 1898. Henry Osborne Havemeyer, president of the American Sugar Refining Company, was interested in the company. Wallace Willett said Colorado and Utah were good for production of sugar beets, but "Colorado... could not control its farmers as well as Utah.... the Mormons could control their people." Thom
caption: Sugar beet presses at the Garland factory
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