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Show Sugar House Sermonettes by E. Cecil McGavin This is the twenty-first in a series of articles on the early day history of Sugar House. The series is presented under the sponsorship of Sugar House Camp, Sons of Utah Pioneers. The experiment was eagerly awaited by everyone. The time was ripe for a supply of sugar in Deseret. A supply was expected by the holiday season, but there was grave disappointment in store for everyone. The first test produced pro-duced nothing but inedible molasses, from which no trace of sugar could be reclaimed. This wras a tragic, blow to the Deseret Manufacturing Company. They had emptied their treasury and their first experiment was a dismal failure fail-ure a climax to an adventure adven-ture fraught with disappoints ment, expense and heartache. John Taylor could not forget for-get the good sugar he had enjoyed en-joyed in France. Beets were grown in the Salt Lake Valley Val-ley that equalled the crop that had been produced in Europe. The same kind of machinery that refined the sugar in France was now in Utah. The indomnitable spirit of the pioneers pi-oneers was not to be broken at that time. This first failure fail-ure could not put an end to the challenging adventure. John Taylor persuaded President Brigham Young to assume the debts of the Deseret Des-eret Manufacturing Company and operate the sugar mill as a church enterprise. Though the original company ceased to exist, the great men of courage cour-age and vision who had pioneered pio-neered the field, were retained retain-ed by the new management and encouraged to push their dreams into realities. W"ith many of the worthy poor employed on the "public works," the church was in a position to minimize the expense ex-pense of erecting a large sugar su-gar mill and forcing the stubborn sugar beet to yield the secret of its hidden wealth in flavor. |