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California and Hawaiian Sugar Company

sugar company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ5021197 ↗
Source-derived summary

California and Hawaiian Sugar Company (C&H Sugar) is an American sugar processing and distribution company. Originally organized as a cooperative in 1921, it encountered a severe decline in sugar markets and passed through a series of owners in the latter half of the 20th century. In 2017, its Crockett, California, refinery processed its last shipment of Hawaiian sugar but continues to produce sugar from other locations. The Crockett Refinery employs more than 450 people and produces 14% of the nation's cane sugar.

History

The California and Hawaiian Sugar Company was founded in 1906 and operated from 1921 to 1993 as an agricultural cooperative marketing association owned by the member sugar companies in Hawaiʻi. The first general manager and longest serving president of the company was George M. Rolph. Its headquarters are in Crockett near the Carquinez Bridge in unincorporated Contra Costa County, California.

In 1993, the member companies sold their interests in C&H to Alexander & Baldwin in Honolulu, and the refining company's status changed from a cooperative to a stock corporation. Alexander & Baldwin subsequently sold its majority share to an investment group, Citicorp Venture Capital (CVC) in 1998, retaining a 40% common stock interest in the recapitalized company. American Sugar Refining bought C&H in 2006, merging it with its other sugar operations.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company” as sugar company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around California, Hawaiian and Sugar.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1921, 2017, 1906, 1993—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1906-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with California, Hawaiian and Sugar providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company”, the useful work is to connect “sugar company” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5021197. VIAF identifies the subject as 130195209. The Library of Congress control number is n81070533. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2017, 1906 and 1993.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow California and Hawaiian Sugar Company primary sources, California and Hawaiian Sugar Company archive and California research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “California and Hawaiian Sugar Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.