k e e p i n g
BUSINESS JOURNAL
b u s i n e s s e s
c o n n e c t e d ™
FEB 2021
VOLUME 6 ■ ISSUE 2
IN PROFILE
THE LEGACY OF SPRECKLES
The Fix, a new yoga studio and juice bar, offers one stop shop for wellness in Oakdale.
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TECHNOLOGY
Social media strategist Tiffany Phillips shares methods for businesses to increase awareness and profits through different platforms. PAGE 9
209 BUSINESS JOURNAL FILE PHOTO
The four 15-story sugar silos as they were imploded on March 15, 1997.
From Manteca’s economic driver to business park DENNIS WYATT
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209 BUSINESS JOURNAL
t was without a doubt one sweet ride. The 78-year marriage between Spreckels Sugar and Manteca that ended a quarter of a century ago was a fabled partnership that for a decade provided economic muscle for the community by turning sugar beets into sugar. Spreckels Sugar refinery started on Jan. 30, 1918 when the first smoke appeared in the Manteca sky roughly where Target is today as the original factory boiler was fired up. Five months later Manteca was incorporated as a city. Spreckels came to Manteca, by the way, much like Bass Pro Shops, Costco, and Great Wolf did. Manteca’s leaders had to lure them here, using a sweetheart land deal to seal the deal. Spreckels already had a dumping station, storage tanks and a tank house in Manteca. They were out in place in 1916 following the previous year’s successful experiment. The fact the Manteca area’s fertile sandy loam soil had irrigation water thanks to the South San Joaquin Irrigation District capable of delivering water to crops every 8 to 10 days caught Spreckels Sugar’s attention. Scouts from the company’s Salinas plant reported the Manteca area was ideal.
The company — before the start of World War I — had shipped 28,000 pounds of seeds from Germany to Manteca in 1915. The first sugar beets grown in Manteca were tested at the Salinas plant. That first crop averaged 25 tons per acre of beets with a high sugar percentage. That yielded farmers $5.50 a ton. The shipping of sugar beets to Salinas was a costly undertaking. That prompted Spreckels to decide to site a plant in San Joaquin County. Lathrop near the Mossdale Crossing and Stockton were the two sites to sugar company wanted. Both had river shipping possibilities and rail freight access. Manteca wasn’t in the running until the community muscled its way into the process. The Board of Trade — a hybrid organization that combined aspects of a town council without incorporation and a modern-day chamber of commerce — circulated petitions. More importantly they cobbled together a land deal that — when coupled with the railroad running through Manteca — was too good for Spreckels to resist. The pungent smell that process created was the scent of prosperity. To underscore that point on the plant’s 50th anniversary, Spreckels employees received their pay for one work period in 1948 in crisp $2 bills. Merchants were SEE LEGACY, PAGE 8
Immigrant with 75 cents started Spreckels DENNIS WYATT 209 Business Journal
One of the sweetest immigrant success stories ever helped provide decent livings for generations of Manteca families and provided area farmers steady incomes for 78 years. Claus Spreckels — born in a small village in what is now modern-day Germany on July 9, 1828 — was a farmhand thrown out of work by crop failure and political upheaval when he immigrated to the United States in 1848. When he arrived in Charleston, South Carolina at age 20 he could speak no English and had only 75 cents to his name. By the time of his death on Dec. 26, 1908 in San Francisco Spreckels was worth $1.6 billion in today’s dollars. He had become known as the Sugar King of Hawaii and had a number of successful enterprises including Spreckels Sugar. His empire included sugar, banks, railroads, sea shipping lines, gas and electricity, breweries, newspapers, and real estate.
Spreckels’ firm — under the leadership of his son Adolph Spreckels — expanded into Manteca by contracting with farmers to grow 244 acres of sugar beets in the Nile Garden area south of present-day Manteca after the formation of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District triggered a surge in agricultural production and pumped new life into Manteca and Ripon. That first crop tested high in sugar. That led to Spreckels signing contracts with farmers to grow 1,300 acres of sugar beets out of the 14,000 acres being supplied with water by SSJID. By 1916, 7,000 acres in Manteca were planted in sugar beets. Spreckels officially formed its Manteca District as well as two nearby — the Modesto and Stockton Districts. Beet dumps and loading stations were built along Southern Pacific as well as Tidewater railroad tracks in Manteca, Lathrop, French Camp, Summer Home and Calla. The exceptional sugar SEE SPRECKLES, PAGE 8