History

FORMERLY HOLLY SUGAR CORPORATION
SIDNEY, MONTANA

1924: Railroad tracks at the factory site made a factory possible in Sidney. Irrigation water from the Yellowstone River was available to the farmers since 1909. (Construction on the canal began in 1905 by The Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project.)

1925: In January, the factory, named Midland Sugar Company, was built in Sidney, Montana. The name was later changed to Holly Sugar Corporation.

1925: 8,111 acres contracted; 58,592 tons of beets sliced; daily capacity 1,200 tons of beets; 127,433 100 pound bags of sugar produced.

1930s: Built bulk sugar bins.

1940s: Silver chain diffuser replaced the Roberts cell type.

1950s: Installation of a pulp drier.

1960s: Major additions: installation of R.T. diffuser, Weibul bulk storage bin, 4 hi raw pans, 2 white pans, 4 automatic white centrifugals, 2 LeFuelle crystallizers, 2nd body evaporator, and water sewage screening device, 100,000 pound boiler, larger lime slacker, sugar end manlift, another pulp press, pellet storage tank, summer boiler, waste water lagoons, a tare and sugar testing lab, and juice scaler.

1970s: Major additions: 16" transit pipeline installed from the factory yard to the Montana Dakota Utilities Lewis and Clark power generating station for the water supply; wastewater modifications, dry skimmers, additional evaporators, sugar granulator, dry sugar elevator, turbine generator, white pan agitators, 4 continuous low raw centrifugals, waste water clarifier, 5 standard liquor filters, thick juice storage.

1980s: Major additions: installation of Putsch beet slicers, 4 Stord pulp presses, conversion of the steam boilers back to coal fired, new ash handling and wet scrubber systems.

1988: Imperial Sugar Company, a cane sugar refinery in Sugar Land, Texas, merged with the Holly Sugar factories whose corporate headquarters was now located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1988, Imperial Holly Corporation became a public company.

1990s: Acreage expansion from 38,800 to over 45,000; ten sugar storage silos, tower diffuser, thick juice storage tank, pressed pulp building, an expanded beet receiving station with pile ventilation, further automation, lime kiln and slacker modification.

2002: October 7, American Crystal Sugar Company, headquartered in Moorhead, Minnesota, purchased the Holly Sugar factory from Imperial Sugar Company and named it Sidney Sugars Incorporated. American Crystal Sugar Company is an agricultural cooperative which operates 5 other sugar factories which are located in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.