Eaton sets to work cleaning up sugar mill

EATON – Several years of unpaid property taxes have put the former Great Western Sugar factory under ownership of the town of Eaton, potentially paving the way for a boom of rail-served industrial development.

In the final week of February, the town exercised the second of two tax liens to take control of the 43-acre site, a decades-long concern for Town Manager Gary Karsten.

According to town officials, the property was purchased from Great Western Sugar Co. in the early 1980s by investor Richard Thomas, who later formed Clean Energy LLC to hold the land. Thomas was able…