Hereford, Texas Wasn’t Always About the Cows, It Was Much Sweeter

Hereford, Texas may be known as the Beef Capital of the World, but they used to be known for something much sweeter.

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Holly Sugar

Hereford had a plant that made sugar out of sugar beets.   The Holly Sugar Company now known as the California Beet Sugar Company was started in Union City, California in 1870.   The sugar was made from sugar beets

What is a sugar beet?

A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (Beta vulgaris).

 Construction of the Hereford Holly Sugar plant began in March of 1963,  with plans to open in 1964.

When it was sugar beet season, Hereford no longer smelled like cow poop, it smelled like cooked beets with cow poop.   Trucks filled to the brim made their way into the city of Hereford bringing tons and tons of beets to the plant.   During sugar beet season, it was inevitable that the roads into Hereford and even inside Hereford would be covered in sugar beets that fell off the truck.  Sugar beets were even transported into Hereford by train.

In 1991, the plant in Hereford expanded by building an ion exclusion plant as a part of the existing plant.  This new feature would extract refined sugar from the beet molasses.

Holly Sugar was some of the best sugar you could buy.  It's possible that it tasted so good because when you bought it you knew it came from Hereford.

Unfortunately, the Hereford Holly Sugar Plant closed in 1997.  Hereford took a hit because the plant provided many jobs, and also the farmers who grew sugar beets no longer had the opportunity to grow for the Hereford Plant.

It was odd not seeing the trucks full of beets rolling through town anymore.