Caro: The Nation's Oldest Surviving Sugarcane Factory is a history of the nation's oldest surviving sugarcane factory.

 The lumber business in Michigan and the nineteenth century came to an end at the same time. Lumber barons had rushed through the state like a hurricane, hauling away the world's last big stand of white pine woods, much like they had done in New England and New York. Those left behind were left with decaying villages, hundreds of miles of combustible debris, erosion-created swampland, and awe that they had surrendered their heritage for a handful of shiny coins. Lumber towns dotted the state, and one of them, Caro, was on the verge of extinction. Caro was named after Cairo, Egypt for some odd reason.

In order for a town to have a chance in the twentieth century, it needed to have an industry. Mayors and other state politicians scoured the state for one. Sugarbeets had become a topic of conversation in Caro after an entrepreneur named Thomas Cranage built a sugar mill in Essexville, a suburb of Bay City, another lumber town looking for an economic foothold to replace lumber. The findings of Cranage's experiment sparked a burst of optimism, immediately displacing the pessimism that had settled in the hearts and minds of lumber community leaders.

Cranage travelled to Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico, and California to observe the operation firsthand and speak with experts before employing them. He went on to form Michigan Sugar Company and, like many other entrepreneurs, made sure it had enough money to weather the inevitable losses that come with starting a business.

The Michigan Sugar Company benefited from smart planning as well as favorable weather. By all accounts, the state's first sugar beet harvest and processing season (known as a "campaign" in the beet sugar business) was a huge success. Sugarbeets totaled 32,047 tones, with an average of 10.3 tones collected from each of the 3,103 acres. The facility extracted 5,685,552 pounds of sugar from the beets, which had an average sugar content of 12.93 percent and a purity of 82 percent. Each purchased tone of beets contained 258.6 pounds of sugar since the sugar content was 12.93 percent. The new sugar factory was able to package 169 pounds of sugar, resulting in a total sugar recovery of 69%, which is a fantastic outcome.