Sugar Beets and Beet Dump

My mind was wandering to past years. You can’t be involved in agriculture without remembering the past and having faith in the future.

Thinking of this year’s harvest issues brought to mind all of the sugar beets that used to be planted up and down the Milk River Valley. There may still be a few around that can remember that almost every railroad siding along the valley had a “beet dump.” I doubt that there was a beet dump along the railroad in Opheim where I spent my early year, and the only one that I have any firsthand knowledge of is the beet dump in Tampico.

Those years involved a lot of Mexican labor. Area farmers/ranchers employed many of these people from Mexico. Beets had to be planted, thinned, and then topped when harvested. Since the labor in the beet fields was not a full season job, these workers were often put to work helping farmers put up hay. Both of these jobs required many more willing hands than the present day methods.

Back to the “dumps.” I doubt there are any remains of these anymore, as a lot of the railroad depots are a thing of the past. These rail heads most always had stockyard corrals, beet dump areas and a scale. It interested me to know that dumping beets for shipping required using the scale twice: weighing a full load, unloading the beets (involving a conveyor belt to the rail car, which let the dirt from the beets fall to a hopper) then the dirt was dumped back into truck and weighed. The second weight was then subtracted from the total weight of beets. What a process.

I had a fleeting thought of touring the present facilities in Sidney, but I am sure it is just a thought. My passed on memories of the “Good ol Days.”