Milestones Icon: Great Western Sugar Co.

The 200-foot-high sugar mill at 11939 Sugarmill Road in Longmont is a daily reminder of the importance of sugar beets on the Front Range in the 1900s.

Denver businessman Charles Boettcher founded the Great Western Sugar Co. with some partners around the turn of the century. The group of entrepreneurs built the first sugar mill in northeastern Colorado in Loveland in 1901. As the company expanded, the Longmont sugar mill was built in 1903.

Numerous farmers grew sugar beets in northeastern Colorado – historic photos show Longmont farmers loading the beets onto trucks with pitchforks.

As Great Western expanded rapidly, it built or…