This time 50 years ago, the Maine Sugar Industries plant in Easton was getting ready to start churning out its first batches of sugar made from beets grown in Aroostook County.
What followed is now known as an epic failure of big business and government, but it kind of started by chance, according to John Cancelarich, the engineer who helped run the beet and potato processing plants of Texas industrialist Fred Vahlsing.
Cancelarich, an 86-year-old Presque Isle resident, recounted his experience living through the sugarbeet factory saga during a presentation on Nov. 12 at the Easton High School library.
“The Maine Sugar story is often looked at as a basic failure, which it was in one respect,” Cancelarich said.
The company’s failure to pay government-backed loans and control pollution on the Prestile Stream ended up costing federal and state taxpayers $30 million at the time, or what would amount to about $180 million today.
“But in a way, it was a noble failure,” said Cancelarich, who came to work for Vahlsing as a young engineer from an immigrant family in New York City. “It was also a vision for what we hoped to accomplish. We hoped to employ 200-plus people and get a second viable rotation crop for potatoes.”
Source: bangordailynews.com