C&H Sugar Co. celebrates century: One-time employment anchor for area to sound whistle marking exact time production began.

Byline: Tom Lochner

Mar. 9--On Friday, at exactly 10:25 a.m., the whistle will blow at the C&H Sugar plant, marking 100 years of sugar refining in Crockett.

"That's the time it started, 100 years ago, March 10, 1906," said Keith Olsen, the historian at the Crockett Historical Museum on Loring Avenue across the Union Pacific Railroad tracks from the C&H truck entrance.

The museum is in Crockett's former railroad depot, which is owned by C&H, as were once most of Crockett's public buildings. Crockett early in the last century was virtually a company town, employing much of the working-age population directly and providing work to others indirectly …