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Overview

Landowner E.H. Dyer invested on the construction of a sugar beet factory on his land in Alvarado, CA, (now part of Union City, CA). Dyer worked with three German immigrants--Augustus Dryden Bonesteel, Andreas Otto, and Ewald Kleinau--to erect a new sugar beet processing factory on his land. The three Germans had traveled from Fond du Lac, WI, where they had been experimenting with sugar beet production. The group began construction of the facility in 05/1870 and was completed by 11/1870.

Building History

Built on a portion of the farm operated by Ebenezer Herrick Dyer (1822-1910), this processing plant opened 11/15/1870, processing 293 tons of beet sugar in its first year. It was located in the town of Alvarado, CA. The town of Union City incorporated several of its neighbors over the years, including Alvarado, DeCoto, and New Haven, CA. Dyer at first worked on his own, but then heard of experiments at raising sugar beets in Fond du Lac, WI, a town in WI's southern Fox River Valley, by three men, Augustus Dryden Bonesteel (born 03/15/1825 in Rhinebeck, NY-d. 04/19/1874 in San Francisco, CA), a local official in NY and WI and a land agent for the Menominee Indians, and two German-born chemists, Andreas Otto (born c. 1825 in Germany-d. 12/15/1905 in Fresno County, CA, naturalized in 1868 in Oshkosh, WI) and Ewald Kleinau (born c. 1858-d. 1894). Otto and Kleinau thought that Fond du Lac's climate and soil was similar to that of Germany and so they decided to experiment with beet production there. Dyer heard of their efforts and contacted them about collaboration and they decided to relocate to CA to start raising sugar beets and to join with Dyer to erect a manufacturing facility.

The Dyer processing plant operated for only three years, before closing. Significant management disagreements developed among Dyer and Bonesteel, Otto and Kleinau, creating bad blood that expedited the plant's shuttering.

Its processing machinery, brought to CA from Germany, was reused in a new beet sugar plant in Soquel. This Soquel plant was operated by Dyer's German investors, Otto and Kleinau. Their Soquel project also ended in rapid failure by 1879.

Once free of his German investors, Dyer rapidly formed another beet sugar enterprise, the Standard Sugar Refining Company, which also ended in rapid failure.

Building Notes

The factory closed for financial reasons in 1873; several subsequent sugar beet factories were built in the near vicinity over the years operated by several different companies, including the Standard Sugar Refining Company (1879-1886), Pacific Coast Sugar Company (1887-1888), Alameda Sugar Company, (1889-1924), and the Holly Sugar Company, (1927-1975).

The original plant was demolished, but a replica has since been erected at the same site;

Demolished;