Editor's Note: This series is among the monthly contributions from the Community History Writers, a group of area individuals committed to documenting and writing about local history and the people, places and happenings that created the various communities within Morgan County.
After World War II, Colorado's population exploded, and the highly productive Front Range farms north of Denver, which produced high-yielding sugar beet harvests, were being sold to developers. To the farmers, land was more profitable divided into lots than in farming.
Factories in Fort Collins, Brush and Fort Lupton had already closed. Great Western tried to hold on to the factories in Brighton, Longmont and Loveland, but the future of those factories became increasingly uncertain.
By the 1960s, Great Western's competitors were building new factories with cutting-edge technology, which were capable of producing more tons of beets more efficiently.
Also, transportation changed. Competitors began to transport beets in trucks, which gave them more flexibility in building factory sites, rather than having to be next to railroads.
Still, the new Great Western United Board of Directors made no improvements.
New Mexico folly
In 1969, White bought California City Development Company, which controlled 36 related companies.
He then bought a 99-year lease of land from Pueblo de Cochili Nation (a 460-member tribe outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico). This offered 7,000 acres north of Albuquerque.
About this series
"From Beets to Beef" is a brief review of the two most important economic drivers of the Fort Morgan community, including the positive and negative impacts on the local social, cultural and political aspects of Morgan County.
White's vision for the land was of a retirement community of 50,000 middle class, white retirees, who would enjoy a world-class golf course, a luxury marina, a first class hospital, and schools, which would be staffed by the tribal members to provide labor and services.
It was a total failure.
Beet growers organize
In 1971, trying to better control their future, angry and frustrated beet farmers formed the Great Western Growers Association.
The next three years were chaotic as different beet growers formed competing factions; there were accusations of double-dealing between the factions.
Great Western United, after a year of fruitless negotiations with the growers, sold 51 percent of its stock to Hunt International Resource Company of Dallas, Texas, in 1974, hoping to save the company with an infusion of cash.
Instead, the Hunt brothers systematically looted and gutted the Great Western United factories to pay for their "obsession for silver and to corner the world's silver market." They "unscrupulously drained the GWU of all its assets. The brothers had never attached a value to anything other than their own personal gain." Paul Branstner, chief electrician of the Loveland factory best summarized their pillage. 'Those billionaires, Bunker and Herbert Hunt, raped the company."
In 1984, the Hunts sold the GWUS company to Mountain States Beet Growers Association, which was made up of 2,200 members, primarily in Colorado and Kansas. This sale continued the chaotic, downward spiral of the company.
Layoffs, closures and deals
In 1985, the Times headlined the layoff of local factory employees. A total of 56 workers were laid off without warning.
Low sugar prices and a surplus of refined sugar led, in 1986, to the closing of factories in Fort Morgan, Sterling and Greeley. Only the Fort Morgan would reopen.
In 2002, London-based conglomerate Tate-Lyle purchased Mountain States Beet Growers Association, then sold its North American Beet Sugar Division to the Rocky Mountain Sugar Growers cooperative for $85 million. Also, the cooperative agreed to repay Great Western's $100 million in debt.
The company that finally emerged from the various deals was the Western Sugar Cooperative, whose motto is "grower owned."
Economic and other impacts
The economic peaks and valleys related to the local factory certainly impacted the economic well-being of this area.
Perhaps because the beet factory became less reliable as a stable economic engine, some community members began to object to beet truck traffic, the stench and the lessening of property values of nearby neighborhoods. Many people blamed the factory for a variety of health issues.
Concerned community committees were formed; complaints were made to the Environmental Protection Agency, to the Morgan County commissioners, and to the Fort Morgan City Council. Many angry letters to the editor were written and printed in the newspaper.
However, these concerns threatened some beet farmers, who then said these committees were trying to take their livelihood away from them, and nothing official was done. As the factory officers brushed off the complaints and the one EPA investigator who did come to investigate was not concerned, some citizens grew even more frustrated. A class action law suit was threatened.
By 2017, the factory's "campaign season" had become nearly a year-round endeavor, rather than the more limited October to March season of the past. Its related sickening stench, the sticky particles that could coat cars, houses and lungs, the ugly sight of the white settling ponds growing ever larger, and the traffic on Interstate 76 getting their first view and smell of Fort Morgan made opposition to the factory's practices more virulent and persistent.
Finally, in May of 2018, as reported in the Fort Morgan Times, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment levied a $2 million dollar fine on Western Sugar, which was found to be in violation of the Colorado Air Pollution Prevention and Control Act, the Water Quality Control Act and the Solid Wastes Disposal Sites and Facilities Act. The state department also cited the unauthorized spills around the wastewater ponds, and told the company to mitigate the ground water and soil impacts, comply with an odor management plan, retrofit existing coal-fired boilers with natural gas burners, establish financial assurance, and provide funding for a local water quality restoration project.
Heather Luther, vice president of Western Sugar, reminded the community that the company spends tens of millions of dollars in the community, paying employees, contractors, making local purchases, and paying property taxes, and invited the community to an informational forum. This was well attended, but many in the audience were disappointed that their questions were not addressed at that meeting.
Last in the series: Local beef industry rises, falls, rises again.