The article below was first published in the October 1897 issue of the Land of Sunshine, edited by Charles F. Lummis. Land of Sunshine was one of the most influential publications of boosteristic propaganda on the virtues of Southern Calfiornia life. It later changed its name to Out West.
16 SEP 1897 — Land of Sunshine, Oct. 1897, Vol. page 223. (Ed. By Charles F. Lummis) On the 16th of September 400 members of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce accepted the invitation proffered by the Los Alamitos Sugar Company and the S.P.R.R. and made a visit of inspection to the great new sugar factory in Los Alamitos. That twelve carloads of representative business men should take a half day from work for such a business stands for something besides mere curiosity or desire for a junket. It was a genuine compliment to the enterprising men who have added this magnificent item to the fast-growing assets of Southern California; and shows again that public spirit of “pulling together” among our business men, which quite as much as our natural resources, has made these few years such a wonderful record of progress.
It took foresight as well as nerve to found such an enterprise as the Alamitos Sugar Factory in the midst of all the forebodings of the late Presidential election. Southern Californians have these qualities — or they would not be here — and know how to appreciate them in others. Mr. W.A. Clarke, President of the Los Alamitos Sugar Factory, and his brother J. Ross Clarke, its general manager, had already made national reputations before they came to this field, which is so attractive to men of money and force. As owners of the famous United Verde Copper Mines in Jerome, Arizona, counts them as among her strongest benefactors; and the extensive banking and other interests they have had in Butte ever since 1876 identify them fully with Montana. W.A. Clarke still resides in Butte, but gives much of his time to watching his various interest throughout the west. J. Ross Clarke was first attracted to Southern California by its climate, and in 1891 came with his family to Los Angeles and settled here. The superior advantages of this section for the production of beet sugar soon brought him into contact with the Dyers, Frank J. Capitain and the Bixbys. With the first-named, arrangements were made for a modern “plant,” while the latter gentlemen furnished a great tract of land for a townsite and for the cultivation of sugar beets. So now Southern California has a second sugar beet factory and one of the three in America wholly owned by American capital and fitted wholly with American machinery. During September the Alamitos factory paid out $70,000 for beets and labor.