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Just today I learned of the demolition of yet another one of Colorado's old sugar mills.
The former Great Western Sugar Co mill in Ovid, abandoned since 1985, has been demolished. I have never personally been there, but had plans to visit once things warmed up a bit. This leaves only a handful of these sugar factories still standing.
Here's some more information:
http://www.esasite...ugar-beet-factory/
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On the bright side this would have been a dark, dangerous splore... and probably sticky.
Seeing this irritates me.
Corn has been made evil... truth.
It's killed the cane sugar industry and now everything tastes too sweet.
In the US they'll do anything to save a buck... even ruin the product ie high fructose corn syrup. Pure poison.
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in.
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that is incredibly sad. that site was so unique. it has to be one of the most amazing places ive ever explored. it was definitely the most intact sugar mill left. i was wanting to back soon too 
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Posted by GasmaskEG
that is incredibly sad. that site was so unique. it has to be one of the most amazing places ive ever explored. it was definitely the most intact sugar mill left. i was wanting to back soon too
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If you have anymore photos, I'd love to see them. I've only been to the Longmont mill, but I had been planning on going to this one and Sterling soon. If only I had caught this one sooner, maybe I could've made it up there in time.
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Posted by GasmaskEG
that is incredibly sad. that site was so unique. it has to be one of the most amazing places ive ever explored. it was definitely the most intact sugar mill left. i was wanting to back soon too :(
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Ditto...
You have a pic thread up on this?
Sugar mills are an endangered species
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in.
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Now that the building has been demolished, i think its time i posted some pictures from my trip there. It had to be one of the greatest places i ever explored. sorry there are so many photos, this place was special. Sugar mills are a dying part of the states history! Ovid was the best surviving example. If anyone else has any photos, please share! RIP Ovid Sugar Mill.
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Posted by blackhawk
Ditto...
You have a pic thread up on this?
Sugar mills are an endangered species
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just posted one!
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Hell yeah
Excellent!
A fine relic indeed...
when these are all gone it will a lesser place to splore
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in.
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Posted by GasmaskEG
just posted one!
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Indeed you did
http://www.uer.ca/...=1&threadid=125610
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in.
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nice shots. Looks like it was indeed a pretty cool place to check out.
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Posted by blackhawk
On the bright side this would have been a dark, dangerous splore... and probably sticky.
Seeing this irritates me.
Corn has been made evil... truth.
It's killed the cane sugar industry and now everything tastes too sweet.
In the US they'll do anything to save a buck... even ruin the product ie high fructose corn syrup. Pure poison.
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Actually, I think cane sugar is what put this place out of business. I think this location processed beet sugar. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I wandered till the stars went dim. |
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Due to the fact that this location has been demolished now, I see no reason for this to be a private thread and I have made it public.
[02:33:56] <Valkyre> Astro your whole life is ruled by the sentence ' life is better without clothes on'
[22:16:00] <DSomms> it was normal until astro got here
Astro: Patron Saint of Drains |
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Posted by GasmaskEG
Now that the building has been demolished, i think its time i posted some pictures from my trip there. It had to be one of the greatest places i ever explored. sorry there are so many photos, this place was special. Sugar mills are a dying part of the states history! Ovid was the best surviving example. If anyone else has any photos, please share! RIP Ovid Sugar Mill.
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Wow. That mill looks like it was incredibly well-preserved. I'm sad I missed it, but thanks for sharing your photos. I guess I better hurry up and visit Sterling before it gets knocked down as well.
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Posted by Dee Ashley
Actually, I think cane sugar is what put this place out of business. I think this location processed beet sugar. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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Yep, all of Great Western's production was beet sugar (with one exception, more on that later)
The downfall of the beet sugar industry in eastern Colorado wasn't due to any one factor, but both corn syrup and cane sugar played central roles. Great Western's infrastructure- the massive factories, multitudes of piling yards & transloading facilities along with 80 miles of company-owned railway connecting it all- was primarily built btwn 1890-1920 and that immense level of vertical integration, built on the bet that competition could be kept non-existent through deals with competing sugar producers and simple geographic isolation, put the company in a seriously precarious position when market trends, shipping technology, and politics inevitably shifted.
For a time, the cost of transcontinental shipping & distribution meant that regional producers held an advantage but by the 1970's that was increasingly no longer the case. Vastly improved interstate bulk goods transportation networks & industry consolidation meant that competition was no longer confined to one specific region and although the US gov't passed severe tariffs on imported cane sugar in 1977, this did little to help Great Western. By this time, corn syrup was rapidly becoming the sweetener of choice in the US- a tendency that was greatly encouraged by the new restrictions on imported cane sugar as well as fresh subsidies for the corn industry, creating big problems for beet sugar producers that increasingly had to compete with a crop that was multipurpose, ubiquitous, and grows in a wider range of climates than sugar beets.
Combined with pressure from domestic cane sugar producers such as the California and Hawaii Sugar Company (C&H), American Sugar Refining, and various gulf-coast producers (who lacked the rigid "one harvest per year" restriction of beets), Great Western was in 1977 sold to a holdings company out of Dallas and forced to begin a drawn-out process of closing its factories, beginning with the Loveland, CO facility. The next year, the Longmont facility was also shuttered and the company made an attempt to enter the cane sugar industry with the purchase of a refinery in Louisiana just west of New Orleans (sidenote, this factory seems to have been demolished in the early 2000's).
In the late 1970s or early 1980s, Great Western made a belated and brief foray into corn syrup production with the conversion of an MSG factory in Johnstown CO to syrup production; this factory subsequently saw a series of owners including Adolph Coors Brewing Company before its demise in 2005 following abandonment and a fire. By the mid-80s, the writing was on the wall- in 1985 GW entered into bankruptcy proceedings. That year GW was sold again, this time to Tate & Lyle of London who were desperate to diversify their own sweetener industry holdings due to European Economic Community quotas on production. The new owners shortened our Colorado producers name to simply "Western Sugar", a perhaps unwitting recognition of the freefall well underway.
By 2002, when Western Sugar was purchased by regional beet farmers and converted into a Growers Cooperative, over a dozen factories had been closed (don't get your hopes up, the ones you haven't heard of are long-demolished) leaving only the refineries in Greeley CO, Fort Morgan CO, and several in the Nebraska Panhandle and deep southeast Wyoming. The Greeley factory was shuttered in 2005 and demolished 2007-2008 while the Fort Morgan and Nebraska and Wyoming factories still conduct their yearly "campaigns" of 24/7 refining from when the beets begin to leave the fields in late autumn till the stockpiles run out in the spring.
So, it could be said that it was corn, or cane, that did Great Western in and both would be right- along with the challenges of being stuck with 1920's infrastructure in a world that by the late 20th century looked vastly different than the turn-of-the-century isolation that once allowed the company to anchor the agricultural landscape of the vast open prairie of eastern Colorado, western Kansas, southeast Wyoming, and the Nebraska panhandle.
If u made it this far, thanx for reading! I wish I could cite sources but honestly a lot of this was from memory with a few details checked against Wikipedia etc so some of the dates may be bit off but AFAIK this is basically the story. I did loads of research on Great Western btwn 2008-2015 and its stuck with me.
[last edit 5/27/2017 7:21 AM by Quarantine - edited 2 times]
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damn shame abt Ovid! Here's a few of my shots. I've got more around but apparently never scanned all the film from my trips.
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Wow. Y'all are making me want to jump up and go find a sugar mill to explore (too bad the ones I know of are at least 500-800+ miles away from me)...
Amazing location!
I wandered till the stars went dim. |
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The few that are still standing are not as good as this one..... sad to see it go
@urbex_colorado |
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Posted by Dee Ashley
Wow. Y'all are making me want to jump up and go find a sugar mill to explore (too bad the ones I know of are at least 500-800+ miles away from me)...
Amazing location!
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Yeah, they really are! it is amazing to see the history! and most of them still have sugar and machinery still present!!
@urbex_colorado |
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TIL a lot more about this state than I previously knew. I thought it was all mine towns, and ski resorts. Thanks for informing me guys.
You're not weird if you're not normal. |
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Here are 3 pics from the demo. I wish I had taken the time to go in last year.
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