C&H Plant, California

The C&H (California and Hawaii) plant next to the Carquinez bridge was once the world's largest sugar cane refinery. It opened in 1906, and still processes cane harvested and crushed in Hawaii, as well as that from Australia, the Philippines, and Nicaragua. Six million pounds of sugar are processed here, daily. A single ship, the bulk freighter Moku Pahu, makes the trip back and forth to Hawaii, where the company has operated sugar plantations for nearly 100 years. The Carquinez Strait has some of the deepest water on the bay, over 100 feet deep in places, and was an important shipping point for Central Valley farms in the late 1800's. The town of Crockett grew as a wheat port at this time, and what is now the C&H sugar plant was originally a flour mill.