AMERICAN CRYSTAL SUGAR COMPANY:

The American Beet Sugar Company, predecessor of the American Crystal Sugar Company, was incorporated on March 24, 1899. The new company consolidated under one management four beet sugar companies that had been established by Henry Oxnard during the preceding decade. Oxnard's interest in the sugar industry had been influenced by his father, Thomas, an entrepreneur who had successfully operated cane sugar refineries in Louisiana, Boston, and Brooklyn. In 1887 Henry had traveled to Europe to learn about the beet sugar industry on that continent, where the process had originated in the early nineteenth century and was much more extensively developed than in the United States.

Oxnard came back from Europe eager to try his hand at beet sugar processing. Attracted to Nebraska by a state bounty of one cent per pound of sugar produced, he established the Oxnard Beet Sugar Company at Grand Island in 1890. The next year he built the Norfolk Beet Sugar Company in Norfolk, Nebraska, and the Chino Valley Beet Sugar Company in Chino, California, where the growing season was longer than in Nebraska. In 1894 Oxnard organized the Oxnard Construction Company, which built an addition to the Chino factory in the same year and which in 1897 constructed the plant for Oxnard's fourth enterprise, the Pacific Beet Sugar Company, in Oxnard, California.

After these four companies were combined as the American Beet Sugar Company in 1899, expansion continued in Colorado. The Oxnard Construction Company completed a plant at Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 1901. The Norfolk factory was closed in 1904 because of an insufficient supply of beets, but its machinery was salvaged and installed in a new factory at Lamar, Colorado, built in 1905. Another new factory was built in Las Animas, Colorado, in 1907 under the corporate charter of the Las Animas Sugar Company, a subsidiary of American Beet Sugar. Beet shortages forced both the Lamar and the Las Animas factories to suffer early closings and entire seasons without production during their first years, but by 1915 enough beets were being grown locally to sustain full production at both factories. Large tracts of land were purchased by American Beet Sugar near the Colorado factories and used as company farms on which cattle, swine, peas, oats, and alfalfa, as well as beets, were raised. In California, transportation of beets to the Oxnard factory was facilitated by the purchase in 1912 of the Bakersfield and Ventura Railroad Company, which became a subsidiary of American Beet Sugar under the name of the Ventura County Railway Company.

Assisting Henry Oxnard during these years were his brothers, Robert and James, with financial backing from two New York financiers, W. Bayard Cutting and James G. Hamilton. Technical expertise was acquired by importing machinery and engineers from Europe. Federal legislation alternatively helped and hindered the sugar industry. The McKinley Act (1890) provided for a bounty of two cents per pound on domestic sugar but it was repealed by the Wilson Act four years later. Domestic sugar production was further hurt by the Underwood-Simmons Act (1913), which reduced the duty on all imported sugar by 25 percent.

A summary of United Stated States sugar tariffs, 1789-1930, can be found in The Sugar Reference Book and Directory (New York, N.Y.: Palmer Publishing Corp., 1932-1933), page 84. In series 37, Miscellaneous Printed Materials, box 150.

Throughout the 1900-1920 period, the beet sugar industry was growing rapidly, especially in the western states. During this period the Great Western Sugar Company built seventeen factories; the Holly Sugar Corporation, six; the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, ten; and the Amalgamated Sugar Company, ten. Most of these factories were located in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, and California. In response to this growth, the American Beet Sugar Company began to seek new areas for beet sugar production. The company's attention was drawn to Minnesota, from which farmers had sent beets to be processed at the Grand Island factory as early as 1892.

A small beet sugar processing plant had been built in St. Louis Park, just outside of Minneapolis, in 1898, but production ceased in 1905 after the plant was destroyed by fire. In 1906, the Carver County Sugar Company (renamed the Minnesota Sugar Company in 1911) opened a factory in Chaska on the Minnesota River southwest of Minneapolis. While most of the beets processed at the Chaska factory were grown in southern Minnesota, in the early 1920s farmers in the Red River Valley, along the northwestern border of the state, began to grow sugar beets and send them to Chaska. By 1923 the Red River Valley farmers were encouraging the Minnesota Sugar Company to build a factory in the valley. The company agreed on condition that the farmers raise money to help finance the project. East Grand Forks was chosen as the site of the factory. Commercial clubs in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks sold $300,000 in stock and obtained a $100,000 loan from the U.S. Agricultural Credit Corporation. A new company, the Red River Sugar Company, was incorporated to build the plant.

Meanwhile, Herman Zitkowski, general chemist at American Beet Sugar and one of its most influential officers, took a tour of the valley in 1924 and reported favorably to the company's management on its prospects as a plant locale. In September of 1924 the American Beet Sugar Company began negotiations with the Minnesota Sugar Company and the Northern Sugar Corporation, which had a processing factory in Mason City, Iowa. In December of that year American Beet Sugar agreed to acquire both companies through a stock purchase. It also agreed to continue construction of the East Grand Forks factory, which was opened in October of 1926. Two years later American Beet Sugar acquired its fourth factory in Minnesota and Iowa when it purchased the Iowa Valley Sugar Company's factory in Belmond, Iowa. Along with these new factories came a new corporate name, the American Crystal Sugar Company, adopted in 1934.

In August of 1929 the company had acquired an interest in the Amalgamated Sugar Company, which had factories in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and California. Six Amalgamated factories were put under the management of American Beet Sugar. Efforts to fully integrate the two companies proved unsuccessful, and in 1936 the American Crystal Sugar Company relinquished its stock in Amalgamated in exchange for ownership of Amalgamated's factories in Clarksburg, California and Missoula, Montana.

The company survived the depression years of the 1930s fairly well, and none of its factories was forced to close. However, economy measures were required. The hourly rate for common labor, for example, fell from 45 cents in 1920 to 32 1/2 cents in 1930. The staggering economy also forced the company to obtain $5 million of acceptance credit in 1930 by putting up its sugar inventory as collateral. The late 1930s saw the beginning of labor unions in the company's factories; American Federation of Labor locals were organized at Clarksburg, Oxnard, and Missoula in 1937, and other factories soon followed.

World War II increased the demand for sugar, but federal restrictions to conserve building materials prevented the construction of additional factories until after the war. Then two Minnesota factories were added in the Red River Valley, one in Moorhead in 1948 and the other in Crookston in 1954.

American Crystal continued to be affected by the increasingly competitive world sugar market. The Sugar Act of 1948 established domestic and import quotas to be enforced by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture; the provisions of the act remained in effect until 1974. Any hope that the beet sugar industry would be boosted by the suspension of Cuban sugar imports in 1961 was dashed by increased imports from other cane-producing countries. Under these conditions the company began to pursue a course of retrenchment which was followed throughout the 1960s: the Ventura County Railway Company was sold in 1959, and factories were closed at Oxnard (1959), Grand Island (1964), Missoula (1966), and Chaska (1971). Attempts to merge with the Ideal Cement Company (1967) and the Archer Daniels Midland Company (1970) were unsuccessful.

These events created apprehension among the farmers in the Red River Valley, which contained the greatest concentration of American Crystal's factories (a fourth had been built in Drayton, North Dakota, in 1963), but which was a great distance from the corporate headquarters in Denver, where the decisions on factory operations were being made. In late 1971 the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association learned that 100,000 shares of American Crystal Sugar stock were available for purchase. A number of the association's members decided to buy the stock in order to make sure their concerns were taken seriously by the company's board of directors. In December of 1971 the president of the growers association went one step further and suggested that the association buy the company. Seventy percent of the association members voted in favor of the proposal. In March of 1972 American Crystal set up a negotiating committee to consider the proposal and also began investigating the stock and tax consequences of the sale. Negotiation over the price continued throughout the spring and summer of 1972. The final agreement settled on $86 million: $50 million for the company, $16 million to retire long-term debt, and $20 million to retire short-term debt. To finance the purchase, the farmers incorporated Crystal Grower's Corporation, for which they sold $20 million in stock; the remaining $66 million was obtained through bank loans. The final agreement became effective February 21, 1973, and on June 14 of that year the American Crystal Sugar Company was reincorporated as an agricultural cooperative.

Since 1973 the cooperative has consolidated its position in the Red River Valley and substantially withdrawn from its other operating regions. The new management moved the corporate headquarters from Denver to Moorhead, where a beet research center was also built. A factory was acquired at Hillsboro, North Dakota, in 1975 through a merger with the Red River Valley Co-op. In addition, American Crystal Sugar managed and operated the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative's factory at Renville, Minnesota from 1976 to 1978. In the West, however, the Clarksburg, California and the Rocky Ford, Colorado factories were operated as "non-member businesses," and the latter factory was leased to a grower-owned cooperative. The Mason City factory ceased operations in 1973, and the Rocky Ford factory was closed in 1979 (but continued to function as a distributing facility until it and the surrounding 6,000 acres were sold in 1982). Clarksburg was sold to a group of California growers who formed Delta Sugar Company. Transfer of Clarksburg to the new owners was completed in July 1984.

The expiration of the Sugar Act in 1974 led to violent swings in sugar prices that alternately enriched and bankrupted the United States sugar industry. Beet and cane sugars have also experienced increasing competition from artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrups. Despite these problems, the American Crystal Sugar Company has emerged in the 1980s as the nation's largest beet sugar processor.

Labor

The operations of the company require a large force of skilled and semi-skilled labor. The sugar production process was from its inception almost entirely mechanized, and the majority of the labor force occupies positions either operating or maintaining factory machinery. A wide range of skill levels is required in these positions. Among the most skilled are the foremen, who oversee various aspects of the production process. Another, peculiar to the sugar industry, is the sugar boiler, whose ability to boil the sugar without burning it makes this an especially skilled position. Others of the skilled posts--head mechanic, electrician, welder, and machinist--are related to the extensive maintenance requirements of the machinery. Connected to most of these positions are two or three assistant positions, in which workers gain skills through apprenticeship. Less skilled jobs include operators of various machines, such as carbonators, evaporators, and granulators. Janitors, supply handlers, and knife cleaners occupy the least skilled positions.

Each of the factories employs between 150 and 600 people at full capacity, but much of the labor force is seasonal. The factories' production period, called the "campaign," begins in the fall with the beet harvest (usually in September) and lasts about five months. During the campaign each factory operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Four separate crews are required to fill the three shifts in order to keep each employee's work week within 41 hours. Only during the campaign are the factories' full labor forces employed. During the rest of the year (intercampaign) only a skeleton labor force is retained to repair and maintain the machinery; it usually comprises about one-fifth of the campaign force.

The company's factories were unionized in the late 1930s, with each plant organizing its own union local. Those in the east (Missoula, Rocky Ford, Grand Island, Mason City, Chaska, Moorhead, and East Grand Forks) were part of the American Federation of Grain Millers; they are also referred to in the records as Beet Sugar Refinery Employees locals or simply as federal labor union locals. The California locals belonged to the Beet Sugar Operators of America, which in the late 1940s became part of a larger union organization called the United Sugar Workers Council of California. This council also represented locals at the California factories of Holly Sugar Corporation and Spreckels Sugar Company. By the late 1940s American Crystal had joined Holly and Spreckels as a management negotiating team, which bargained with the council to reach annual master contracts covering all the California factories. Individual contract changes might then be made by each factory and appended to the master contract.

Management

Until the 1970s the American Crystal Sugar Company had two levels of management organization. The top level consisted of the company's officers, including the president, the general superintendent, and the general chemist. It also included various specialized departments, such as operations, transportation, and general labor. The other level of organization comprised the management at each factory, consisting of a manager, who administered the factory's agricultural business with the farmers, and a superintendent, who managed the factory operations. The superintendent was supported by an assistant superintendent, a master mechanic, a chief chemist, a chief engineer, and a chief electrician.

From Field to Factory

Historically the cultivation of sugar beets has been accomplished by a partnership between the farmer and the company. Each year before the spring planting season, factory representatives travel through beet growing areas to obtain contracts with farmers to purchase their beets. The contracts offer specific prices, which vary according to the sugar content of the beets and the market price of sugar and which are paid to the farmer when the beets are delivered to the factory in the fall. Further payments, based on the selling prices of the finished products, are paid at a later date.

Before high quality seed became commercially available, farmers who signed the contract were required to plant seeds sold by the company, though commercial seed is now used. After the beets have grown above ground, the farmer prevents overcrowding by taking out half or more of the plants; this is known as thinning.

The harvest usually begins in September. It involves not only removing the beets from the ground but also topping them by cutting off the leafy stem at the top of the plant. Both thinning and topping require a considerable amount of seasonal labor. Sometimes groups of local high school students are hired, but more often migrant laborers from Mexico are used. The company assists the growers in recruiting migrant labor, sending agents to operate recruiting offices in various towns in Texas. The company also makes arrangements for farmers to hire fieldmen to supervise the labor. As tractors specially built for beet cultivation have come into more widespread use, less and less seasonal labor has been needed.

After the beets are harvested, the farmer transports them to loading stations, called beet dumps, where they are transferred to railroad cars or trucks for the trip to the factory. At the factory the beets are placed in large outdoor piles to await processing. Once inside the factory, the beets are washed, cut into strips called cossettes, and placed in water into which the beet's sugar dissolves. The cossettes are then removed, dried, and made into pulp to be sold as cattle feed. The sugar solution is put through various chemical processes to extract impurities, then is boiled, dried, crystalized, and packed into bags to be sold as Crystal Sugar. For a detailed description of the technical process of producing beet sugar, see Facts about Sugarbeets and Beet Sugar in the Upper Midwest (American Crystal Sugar Co., ca. 1975), in series 37, Miscellaneous Printed Materials, box 149.

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The main body of corporate records begins in 1899, with the incorporation of the American Beet Sugar Company, and continues through American Crystal's reorganization as a cooperative in 1973. Minutes (several series), ledgers and journals, stock records, and annual reports are nearly complete for the entire period. Subject files, statistical data, and labor records, as well as a variety of supplementary materials, also span these years, although concentrated in the 1950s and 1960s. Photographs and photo albums depict the company's facilities and operations throughout its history.

The records of 14 other predecessor or subsidiary companies, active largely during the 1910s to 1930s, are present in varying degrees of completeness. A few land titles and statistical items predate 1899, and several files of reports, labor records, and miscellany continue sporadically through the 1970s.

Among the topics documented in the records are corporate decision making and its effect on corporate growth and development; labor relations, including the use of migrant labor in agriculture; agricultural mechanization; U.S. sugar industry development and regulation; the operations of the Sugar Trust; changes in corporate financing; and local information on factories and communities in California, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Colorado.

American Crystal Sugar Company's records further represent a remarkable span of corporate history. Because of their relative completeness, they offer an unusual opportunity to study the development of one company's business strategy; corporate decision making and its effect upon corporate growth and development; labor relations, and in particular the use of migrant labor in agriculture; agricultural mechanization; United States sugar industry development and regulation; the operations of the Sugar Trust; and changes in corporate financing techniques. In addition, the considerable information on the company's factories and the communities in which they operated should be of interest to industrial archaeologists, and to local and regional historians in California, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado.

The collection was carefully selected from more than 4,000 cubic feet of records stored at the corporate headquarters, in a Moorhead, Minnesota, warehouse, and at the closed sugar factory in Rocky Ford, Colorado.

Included are correspondence; financial records; minutes of board of directors, executive committee, and stockholders annual and special meetings; labor records; company publications; statistical reports; land and property records; corporate office correspondence and subject files; and stockholder registers. Many series are virtually complete from 1899 through 1972.

In addition to these corporate series, the collection includes other records with rich research potential. Examples of such records are the early twentieth century minutes of the Agricultural Club of Oxnard, California, and of the Rocky Ford Foreman's Club; a set of scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings from local papers referring to individual American Crystal Sugar plants; and a remarkable collection of photographs documenting the factories, farm machinery used from 1899 to the present, migrant laborers, company housing, beet field cultivation, and changes in factory machinery.

An additional wealth of information is contained in a series of research files compiled by Dan Gutleben, the beet industry's chief chronicler until his death in 1969. The Gutleben materials include detailed information on each of the American Crystal Sugar plants, including biographical data on plant managers and other personnel, historical sketches, and numerous photographs.

The collection also contains a rare group of annual reports for other sugar companies, many of them difficult or impossible to locate in any public repository. Included are reports of the Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation, Holly Sugar Corporation, Godchaux Sugars Inc., Great Western Sugar Company, National Sugar Refining Company, and the Cuban-American Sugar Company.

In addition to the records of the American Crystal Sugar Company, the collection contains important records of a number of its chief predecessor and subsidiary companies. Among these are records of the Minnesota Sugar Company, Northern Sugar Corporation, Riverside Land and Canal Company, Las Animas Sugar Company, Mid Western Sugar Company, and Carver County Sugar Company.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Carmichael, David, comp. Guide to the records of the American Crystal Sugar Company (Minnesota Historical Society, 1985).

A copy of the published guide, supplemented by a box location list, is available in the repository; filed in the ALPHA notebooks under the heading: American Crystal Sugar Company.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. American Crystal Sugar Company Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples

Accession Information:

Accession numbers: 12,852; 12,886; 13,303

Processing Information:

Catalog ID number: 09-00041786

Disposition Note: In 2005, Series 12 (general ledgers) and Series 13 (general journals) were removed from the collection and destroyed, in keeping with the repository's business records retention policies.

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These records consist of copies of American Crystal's bylaws and certificate of incorporation (March 24, 1899), and their amended versions through the 1970s. Also included is board of directors' correspondence relating to the printing and distribution of these documents.

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Annual reports are complete for the years 1905 through 1980. Each includes a list of company officers and directors, financial statements, reports on beet crops, and reports on processing plant operations.

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These scrapbooks were compiled for American Crystal in the 1940s by Dan Gutleben, an amateur historian of the sugar industry whose interest stemmed from his work for the Oxnard Construction Company in 1899 and his several subsequent positions in the sugar industry, including service as chief engineer at the National Sugar Company. They consist of biographical and historical narratives, mainly written by Gutleben, photographs, statistical compilations, occasional newspaper and magazine articles, programs, news releases, and memorabilia relating to all aspects of the history and operations of the company and its predecessors from the 1890s to the late 1940s.

Folders 1-4 ("Denver") contain information on American Crystal's corporate officers and on the sugar beet industry in general. There are biographies and photographs of the Oxnard family and their associates, who started and directed operations of the four predecessor companies and the American Beet Sugar Company; information on the early production methods and operations of the company; lists, biographies, and photographs of principal company officers; explanations of beet and beet seed cultivation (text by Gutleben with appended articles, reports, and pamphlets); U.S. Department of Agriculture press releases on beet prices (1940 and 1941); labor rate statistical tables (1890-1949); data on the company's retirement program; and information on the federal sugar bounty (text by Gutleben with excerpts from articles).

The remaining folders are devoted to the company's various processing plants organized by name of plant, with one folder for its subsidiary, the Ventura County Railway Company. They contain lists, biographies, and photographs of plant managers; a history and photograph of each plant; narratives and statistics on the plants' histories and operations; typewritten excerpts from newspaper articles about the plants; and miscellaneous news clippings and promotional materials. The Ventura County Railway folder includes photographs of steam and diesel locomotives.

The volume is an index to the scrapbooks, also prepared by Gutleben. It contains subject entries with references both to the scrapbook pages and to various drawers and shelves in the company offices; the latter references are no longer valid.

The scrapbooks were originally housed in five looseleaf volumes. These have been dismantled and the pages placed in file folders. Gutleben numbered most of the pages and loose items in the course of compiling the scrapbooks, leaving numerous gaps, apparently to allow the insertion of additional materials. A few pages appear actually to be missing; these are noted on the file folders. A number of photographs were also found to be missing from their original settings on the scrapbook pages; it is possible that some of these are now among the loose photographs (see Series 36 for photographs).

Additional historical writings and research materials on the sugar industry compiled by Gutleben can be found in the New York Public Library (1917-1936, 1 box) and the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections, East Lansing (1945-1959, 7 folders). National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress) 1969, page 103; 1980, page 65.

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During the 1940s, Dan Gutleben corresponded with and solicited information from persons who had been instrumental in developing the cane sugar and incipient beet sugar industries during the years 1890-1910. This file consists of typed transcripts of his correspondence, primarily letters to him, and scrapbook material compiled by him. Most of the correspondence is biographical or autobiographical and somewhat anecdotal. It chronicles the careers of managers and technicians who headed companies such as the Holly Sugar Corporation and the California and Hawaiian Sugar Company as well as the American Beet Sugar Company, its predecessors, and the Oxnard Construction Company. Correspondents include American Beet Sugar officials Benjamin Sprague, Ernest Hamilton, and Herman Zitkowski.

The scrapbook material consists almost entirely of typed extracts from the "Ware Scrap Books"; many of them are photocopies. Lewis S. Ware (1851-1918) of Philadelphia, an active promoter of the beet sugar industry in America during the 1870s-1890s, acquired an extensive library of books on sugar, and compiled 83 volumes of scrapbooks. After his death, his collections were housed in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. In the early 1950s, Gutleben arranged for transcription of the scrapbooks, or portions of them, and sent copies of the 1500-page transcript to the Franklin Institute, the U.S. Department of Agriculture library, and the library of the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists. Information taken from The Sugar Tramp, 1947 (rev. 1963), pages 27-30; 1963: Illinois, pages 2, 12-13.

The scrapbook extracts found with Gutleben's historical files in the American Crystal Sugar Company records, a small fraction of the full set, document the formative period of the American Beet Sugar Company and the beet sugar industry as a whole, primarily during 1889-1905. They contain information on American Beet Sugar's founders, the Oxnard family, concentrating on Henry but also mentioning Robert, Benjamin, and James. They document the range of activities pursued by the Oxnards: the construction and establishment of the four original Oxnard factories at Grand Island and Norfolk, Nebraska, and at Chino and Oxnard, California; the importation of German technology and management for these factories, with production and cost data on their early operation; the promotion of sugar beets among farmers by Henry Oxnard and other entrepreneurs; the land speculation that followed the acceptance of beets as a crop; lobbying efforts by Henry Oxnard for state and federal sugar bounties and for restrictions on sugar imports; the establishment of the American Beet Sugar Company in 1899 and its construction of the Rocky Ford, Colorado, factory in 1901; and the company's expansion into the Arkansas River Valley after 1900.

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The Sugar Tramp is a serial history of various aspects of the beet sugar industry, written by Dan Gutleben. It concentrates on the careers of the engineers ("sugar tramps") who built and maintained the sugar processing factories, primarily during the period 1910-1930; on technological advancements in sugar cultivation and processing; and on the history of the sugar industry in general, both in the United States and abroad. Much of the information is biographical and anecdotal.

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The board of directors minutes of regular (monthly) and special meetings appear to be complete from the first meeting of the board (March 28, 1899) to May 8, 1969. The board grew from four members in 1899 to twelve in 1969. The minutes record board decisions on such matters as obtaining loans, paying stock dividends, amending bylaws, letting contracts, and managing real estate. Letters calling meetings and appointing directors, as well as various legal documents, are included.

Notable entries in the minutes include the sale of the four original Oxnard factories to the American Beet Sugar Company (April 4, 1899); approval of the contract with the Oxnard Construction Company to build a plant at Rocky Ford, Colorado (January 2, 1899); setting up operations in Colorado and California, including construction contracting, land purchase and sale, and acquisition of water rights (various meetings, 1900-1906); the board's proposition to buy the Minnesota Sugar Company (November 17, 1925); and the unsuccessful efforts to merge American Crystal with the Ideal Cement Company and the Potash Company of America (September 20, 1967). Throughout the 1960s the minutes reflect the board's increasing concern with federal government regulation and with the various sugar acts.

Note: An alphabetical list of all directors through 1950 can be found on pages 13-18 of Gutleben Historical Scrapbooks, folder 1.

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As established in the original bylaws, the executive committee of the board of directors consisted of the chairman of the board, the president of the company (both ex officio), and three directors elected by the board. The committee met irregularly at intervals of one to six months. Its minutes, with appended reports and agreements, appear to be complete from the first meeting of the committee on December 12, 1899 to April 26, 1972.

In general, the executive committee made decisions on matters closer to the actual operations of the company than did the board of directors. The minutes include entries relating to bank loans, stock dividends, the company's pension and insurance programs, the determination of executive salaries, and approval of expenditures for new plant equipment. Yearly duties of the committee included approval of the budget and of the contracts made with beet growers, usually accomplished at the late April meeting.

Notable entries include the purchase of the Amalgamated Sugar Company and the resulting stock exchange offer to Amalgamated stockholders (August 27, 1929); an agreement with the Denver National Bank for five million dollars of acceptance credit (September 17, 1930); and the approval of the first union contracts with the American Federation of Labor locals in Clarksburg and Oxnard (August 5, 1937). Appended to the minutes at various dates are detailed financial reports on pensions, insurance, and salaries, including a notable comparison study of salaries of principal employees (June 19, 1935).

Note: An alphabetical list of all executive committee members through 1950 can be found on pages 19-23 of Gutleben Historical Scrapbooks, folder 1.

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The stockholders minutes record the proceedings of the annual stockholders meetings, usually held in June, and of a few special meetings, and list the results of elections of directors. Also included in the minutes after approximately 1950 are summaries of stockholders' questions to, and discussions with, the board of directors. Appended to the minutes are the official notices of the meetings, proxies, related certifications, and (after 1960) annual fiscal year reports.

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The finance committee was established by the board of directors on February 26, 1965 to review the financial affairs of the company and to make recommendations to the board based on its review. The committee consisted of six members of the board of directors. Its minutes record the proceedings of five meetings held between May 17, 1965, and February 1, 1966. Entries in the minutes include the review of various financial statistics and discussions on securing loans. Appended to the minutes are assorted financial data, including balance sheets, marketing projections, and lists of assets.

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This series comprises the proceedings of two committees formed to explore the possible sale or merger of the American Crystal Sugar Company. The first, established at the April 10, 1970 board of directors meeting, was charged with investigating a merger with the Archer Daniels Midland Company. The committee consisted of eight members of the American Crystal board of directors. Its minutes cover the proceedings of six meetings held from April 15 to August 17, 1970. They record the committee's efforts to select financial consulting firms to determine the value of each of the companies, as well as its discussions of the various possible stock exchanges and tax options that might accompany the proposed merger. Appended to the minutes are the official notices of the meetings and correspondence with investment bankers Goldman, Sachs & Co. concerning the valuation of the companies. Minutes of the last meeting (August 17, 1970) indicate that the negotiations were inconclusive and would be terminated without a recommendation for the merger.

A second negotiating committee was established by the board on March 10, 1972, to discuss the purchase of the company by the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association, Inc. The committee consisted of seven members of the American Crystal board of directors. Its minutes record the proceedings of ten meetings held from March 10 to December 18, 1972. Entries include the committee's discussions with financial consulting firms; discussions of various methods of purchase, and of the tax and stock consequences; and negotiations with representatives of the growers association (who were present at some of the meetings) over the price of the company and its constituent parts. By the December 18 meeting, the negotiations were coming to a successful conclusion; the purchase of the company by Crystal Grower's Corporation, formed by the growers association for that purpose, was completed in 1973. A press release (March 10, 1972) announcing the commencement of negotiations, and the growers association's correspondence with various lending institutions, are appended to the minutes.

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The subject files (1924-1977) consist largely of correspondence, supplemented by reports, statistical compilations, legal documents, promotional pamphlets, news clippings, and literature and circulars from various organizations. They are concentrated in the 1950s and 1960s. The materials focus on American Crystal's administration, finances and labor matters; various technical, procedural, and contractual aspects of beet sugar production; and other sugar companies and industry organizations. There are fairly extensive files on beet production contracts, factory budgets, company gifts and donations, factory closings, sugar byproducts, labor regulation during the 1930s, prospective expansion into new territories, advertising and publicity, negotiations with labor unions, and water usage, as well as correspondence of board chairman Cris Dobbins.

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The inactive agreements file (1899-1975) consists of contracts entered into by the company for the purchase of production and agricultural materials; contracts for land purchases, leases, and rights; labor agreements with unions and farm labor employment agencies; and transportation and storage agreements. Covering correspondence is sometimes attached to the contracts. This file does not contain contracts with farmers to purchase beets or contracts to sell the processed sugar.

The inactive agreements are arranged by contract number, in roughly chronological order; some contract numbers are missing. A few miscellaneous files of contracts arranged by subject are found at the end of the series. There is a partial index to agreements (nos. 1-2169, letters A-K only), in which entries are made under the first letter of the name of the first party to the agreement, listed there under by contract number.

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The financial statements are annual (1944-1958, issued in March of each year) and monthly (1961-1963, 1974) reports containing detailed financial analyses of factory, production, and research costs; pulp and molasses sales; additions and improvements; and farm and land expenses. Data are given for operations at each processing plant. The annual statements also include the Ventura County Railway Company. Some of the statements are slightly water-damaged.

Annual statistical reports (1929-1979) detail the company's agricultural and operational functions. Agricultural statistics include acreage and yield, rainfall and temperature, and loading figures. Operating statistics include figures on slicing rates; sugar, molasses, and pulp production; and chemical and fuel use. In addition to this information, which is presented in charts, each report also contains written managers' reports (for agriculture) and superintendents' reports (for operations) summarizing the year's campaign at each factory. Reports for 1934-1936 are missing.

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The stock records consist primarily of stock registers (stockholder lists) and stock transfer sheets. The stock registers are quarterly compilations of the name, address, amount of dividend, and number of the dividend check for each stockholder. A set of combined registers of common and preferred stockholders (1928-1953) is contained in boxes 79-81. Three separate sets of registers (for common and 6% first preferred, 1941-1967, and 4 1/2% prior preferred, 1946-1967) are in boxes 82-92; those for 1957-1965 are missing. Another set of registers, boxes 93-94, lists stockholders of record for common and preferred stock at the end of the quarter preceding annual or special meetings; this group is very incomplete. The separate sets of registers duplicate some of the information contained in the combined set.

The stock transfer sheets, boxes 95-101, are daily listings of stock issued or surrendered, giving shareholders' names, the number of shares in each transaction, and certificate numbers. One set covers common stock, another set (incomplete) the several issuances of preferred stock.

Miscellaneous stock records include an early stock ledger (1911-1936), a compilation of American Crystal stock quotations (1941-1963), printed notices to stockholders, and scattered correspondence and proxy materials.