Founded in 1895 by a group of financiers from Gramercy Park, New York, on a site called "Faubourg Lapin," Colonial Sugars Refinery first operated as a sugar mill processing sugar cane from Golden Grove Plantation. A refinery was built in 1902 to supply granulated sugar to the U.S. market. The company town offered housing, schools, church, store and recreation. It was owned by the Cuban-American Sugar Co. for 52 years. Dr. George P. Meade, co-author of Cane Sugar Handbook, worked there for 37 years. Savannah Foods and Ind. purchased it in 1986. It was the first operating sugar refinery in the United States to be on the National Register of Historic Places.