Michigan’s beet sugar industry grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century as the declining lumber industry left thousands of cleared acres suitable for sugar beet cultivation. In 1897, the state legislature further encouraged this new crop by offering producers a bounty of one cent for each pound of sugar made from Michigan beets. Numerous beet sugar factories soon appeared, many in the Saginaw Valley, where climate and soil were favorable. Among them was the Peninsular Sugar Refining Company at Caro, organized in 1898 as the Caro Sugar Company, and today the oldest beet sugar factory still operating in Michigan. Its success owed much to area farmers willing to grow sugar beets. A German firm built the factory in 1899 on land donated by the community, the Tuscola County Advertiser publicized the venture, and local businessman Charles Montague raised capital for it. Farmers hauled tons of beets to the Caro factory in horse-drawn wooden-wheeled wagons and sleighs, and in October 1899 the company began its first season of beet sugar production. In 1906, Peninsular Sugar merged with several other companies to form the Michigan Sugar Company. Under superintendent Charlie Sieland, the Caro factory became known as a training ground for sugar craftsmen, and its modern automated equipment is now housed in the original factory.