The Evolution of Sugar Beets in the Red River Valley will be on Wednesday, December 13, at 1:00 PM at the Golden Link Senior Center in Crookston. Cliff Nelson, retired Maintenance Superintendent at American Crystal Sugar, is organizing the event and will feature several speakers talking about farming methods used then and now, how sugar was marketed, and the history of the factories and processing.
Cliff Nelson described how he came up with the idea of hosting the event. “It kind of started some time ago; I was talking to young farmers. A lot of them have heard about how beats used to be harvested,” says Nelson. “So, it kind of came to me that I grew up on a beet farm north of East Grand Forks (and) quite a number of years ago. So I kind of know a lot of the history of the sugar beats. So I thought: ‘Why not put on a little seminar explaining the sugar beets and how it came to the valley?'”
Nelson’s portion of the event will be about what goes on in the sugar beet factories and when they were built in the valley. Nelson says what he hopes the community will get out of the event. “I’m hoping that they’ll see how important sugar beets are here in the valley,” Nelson said. “And also, I’m a collector, so I’ve got a few old models of antique tractors. I’m also a collector of model steam engines, so I’m going to bring some of them down, and we’ll have a display case down here. So hopefully, the old-timers will bring back some good memories, and the new people will learn something.”
Allen Dragseth is the president of the Sugar Beet Museum in Crookston. He’s been running the museum for 20 years since he bought the old Crookston Implement Building. Dragseth now collects vintage equipment that was involved in sugar beet harvesting and displays it at the museum. “We got harvesters from back in the (1930s) and (1940s), and we’ve got modern equipment for people to see how the beet industry has grown over the years and modernized,” said Dragseth. “It’s probably one of the modern agricultural commodities that’s grown. It’s what’s happened over the years: the way harvesting has changed and how we’ve grown.”
Dragseth will be talking about the early beet harvest and the growing of sugar beets in the early days. “It’s one of the biggest industries in town, and it gets to be pretty wild here in the fall during our harvest time,” Dragseth said. “This past fall, my wife and I came back from Fargo after dark, and boy, if you don’t know what the heck is happening in town with all the trucks and the lights on and everything, it’s kind of scary when as you first drive into town. I’m sure a lot of people have experienced that. It’s not known (by a lot of people) really how sugar is made out of the beets. We’re hoping to show them how that is.”
Scott Knutson, Board of Directors at American Crystal Sugar, will also be there, and he will talk about how the sugar is marketed.
The Golden Link Senior Center is hosting the event. This is the first time this event is being hosted. Director of the Golden Link Jennifer Erdmann hopes this will be a yearly event. “This was all brought on by Cliff Nelson, our member who is retired from American Crystal Sugar, and he said: ‘This would be great for us to speak on the evolution of sugar beets in this Red River Valley and then to have Allen and Scott with them and all the displays,” Erdmann said. “So, hopefully, we can continue this every year.”
The event is free, and all are welcome to come.
