APPENDIX. 



< a > Some Leaders in Creating This New Industry. 



A REMARKABLE MAN AND HIS WONDERFUL CAREER. 



Glaus Spreckels was born in Hanover, the young German arriving at New York in 

 1830. He became the proprietor of a small retail grocery store. With the discovery of 

 gold in California, he closed his business in New York and went to the Pacific coast not 

 as a prospector or a miner, but as a merchant. He continued as a grocer, maintaining 

 the reputation he had gained in New York as a keon business man, but achieving no 

 special prominence. After 25 years of fairly prosperous business, he began outside invest- 

 ments. They proved most profitable and he soon sought larger fields. He became known 

 as a speculator in sugar, and studying this trade carefully, he found that it was then 

 dependent upon a supply from outside sources and was extremely costly on the Pacific 

 coast. 



In deciding upon a location for the production of sugar, he found a Paradise in 

 the Pacific ocean the Hawaiian Islands and here Mr. Spreckels settled. Sugar could be 

 raised more cheaply here than in the United States, and could be shipped to the Pacific 

 coast cheaper than from the sugar producing regions of the Union. Mr. Spreckels was 

 always prominent among the white population, and devoted his time largely to securing 

 sugar plantations. Just how he obtained control of the entire sugar output of the Sand- 

 wich Islands will probably never be known. He did, however, and long before 1885 was 

 known as the sugar king of the Sandwich Islands. His power was far greater than that 

 of the native ruling monarch. All the sugar plantations were under his personal control, 

 and all the product was refined at his plants and later sent to the United States. 



It was during this period that he accumulated his enormous fortune which enabled 

 him to successfully contend against the sugar trust. When that gigantic monopoly 

 undertook to drive him out of the sugar business on the coast, he not only successfully 

 contended against it, but, erecting a big refinery at Philadelphia, brought the trust to 

 terms in its very home. The trust bought out his eastern business at his own price and 

 agreed to leave his western business alone. He made several millions in this deal. 



Mr. Spreckels early saw the immense possibilities of the beet sugar industry in 

 the United States. He was so impressed therewith that he gradually sold out his Ha- 

 waiian interests, as the success of the beet sugar industry was demonstrated at Watson- 

 ville, Cal. The eleven years' record of that enterprise is stated on Page 170, and was 

 such as to warrant Mr. Spreckels in building the largest beet sugar mill in the world. It 

 is located in the heart of the rich Salinas valley, California, and the new city of Spreck- 

 els is growing up about it. A full description of this mammoth plant is a feature of the 

 present book (see Pages VIII, 170, 179, 181). This vast enterprise is a fitting monument to 

 the man, who is one of the typical "makers of the west." 



Mr. Ppreckels married early in life. He was always known as a man of domestic 

 tastes, preferring his own home to the attractions of society. He is, however, well known 

 in the social world, both east and west. His favorite amusement is the friendly game of. 



(203) 



