Arthur Stayner (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Arthur Stayner (March 29, 1835 - September 4, 1899) was an English horticulturist who emigrated to the United States and became important in the founding of the sugar beet industry in Utah. The first entrepreneurs to try to make sugar from beets in Utah were the Mormon pioneers in the early 1850s, who used machinery shipped from Liverpool, England, but their attempts to produce granulated sugar failed because they could not overcome the problems created by growing beets in alkali soils. Stayer studied the sugar industry in California. He was energetic, and using his property he conducted experiments with sugar cane, sorghum cane, and sugar beets in Utah. In 1887, he produced the first 7,000 pounds of commercial sugar in Utah and received a $5000 award from the legislature for doing so. With the support of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and other business leaders, he formed the Utah Sugar Company in 1889 with 20 stock holders. This company was ultimately instrumental in the building of a $400,000 beet sugar factory, constructed by E. H. Dyer in 1891 at Lehi.