Franklin County Sugar Beet Factory

Franklin County, Idaho is the first county you come to in Idaho if you go north from Logan, Utah in Cache Valley. Whitney, Idaho is a small town just south of Preston, Idaho and just a few miles north of the Utah-Idaho border. Sugar beets were first successfully raised in the intermountain west in the last part of the 19th century. The first successful sugar beet crop in Franklin County was planted in 1899. They shipped the beets to places such as Ogden, Utah for processing until 1920 when a sugar beet processing factory was built by the Franklin County Sugar Company just south of Whitney. In 1960 the factory was sold to the Amalgamated Sugar Co. I have been unable to determine when it was abandoned but it was a number of years ago.

The photo below is taken from the Whitney cemetery looking south through Cache Valley. The sugar beet factory is to the right with the tall smoke stack. Note the handsome barn to the left.

All of the rest of the photos are taken from the west side of the factory. The big evergreen tree divides the factory, photographically speaking, north and south. The two photos below show the north and south halves, respectively.

The next three photos are the upper story of the north part of the building. The second photo is a close up of the vent on the roof. The third photo is of the two windows on the right side of this story.

The next three photos are of windows on the north end, bottom story.

The photos below are of the part of the building with the company name on it.

The photo below is a close up of the area  just to the left of the section with the company name on it. As you can see this works well in black and white.

The last photo shows The Old Cowboy contemplating the old factory. Either that or he's fallen asleep. Hard to tell sometimes.

Here is a link to some aerial views taken by a drone. Great stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsoqxlck3Bc