A sugar shack was a traditional sight on many Midwestern and Northeast U.S. farms, where sap from nearby tapped sugar maple trees was boiled down to make maple syrup, a craft settlers learned from Native Americans in the area. In the early days of the country, maple syrup was promoted as an alternative to cane sugar and was the only sweetener some families used. It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of maple syrup. A wood-fired evaporator pan made by Leader Evaporator is on display; such pans were first used in the Civil War era as an improvement on large cast iron kettles. The same kind of evaporator was used in the South and Lower Midwest to make sorghum syrup from sorghum juice after the crop was introduced from Africa in the 1850s. On the south side is a sorghum press made by the Chattanooga Plow Company and used to extract juice from the canes. About 10 gallons of juice make a gallon of sorghum syrup.