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Bittersweet Closure For An Everglades Town

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By BAIRD HELGESON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 13, 2008

Updated: 07/13/2008 12:14 am

CLEWISTON - Jim Withers sat in the back room of his small barbershop smoking a cigarette and studying his computer screen.

From the office, he could see Michael Smith sitting on a chair against the wall.

Withers' old friend didn't come for a haircut. He wanted to talk. Not about politics, or even gas prices. He wanted to talk about U.S. Sugar Corp.'s decision to close.

"If the plant closes, this town will become a ghost town," said Smith, who worked at U.S. Sugar for five years.
Withers has cut the hair of company executives, refinery workers, their relatives and their children. His customers are sugar people.

So it is little surprise these days that nearly every conversation steers back to U.S. Sugar.

The company's decision to close is the latest rift in the sometimes bitter marriage between the agricultural giant and its workers, who simply call it "Sugar." The company gave the town's residents so much, but also left them wondering what they've had to do without. Now the 77-year union is drawing to an uncertain and at times maddening end, leaving residents scared, angry and frustrated.

Residents are left wondering: Can a one-industry town survive without its industry?

U.S. Sugar, which has been under siege from environmentalists for polluting the Everglades and has been facing pressure from lower-cost producers, has agreed to sell the state its 187,000 acres for an Everglades restoration project and close in six years. The largest conservation-land deal in Florida history would result in $1.75 billion for the company and the loss of about 1,700 jobs.

It's a heart-stopping blow to a town of 6,500, an area along Lake Okeechobee that the Seminole Indians once used as a fishing camp.

Today, Clewiston is among Florida's last true company towns. From the sugar cane fields that surround the town, the only sign of Clewiston is the billowing smokestacks that fill the air with the scent of burning sugar, an odor that some find nauseating and others find comforting.

Unlike many other parts of Florida, it's easy to find locals with long ties to the area, whose mothers and fathers arrived on ox-drawn carts to pick beans and sugar cane. Some of the earliest settlers were lured by the challenge of draining the Everglades, a feat some experts considered impossible.

In the late 1800s, South Florida's cycle of hurricanes, then drought, then more flooding prompted Florida officials to seek federal aid to tame Mother Nature.

In about 1905, water managers and engineers began to drain the Everglades to make the land suitable for farming and development. The vast tapestry of swamp, forest and prairie was transformed into fertile farmland, ideal for beans, sugar cane and citrus. At the same time, the calming of volatile flood cycles allowed cities such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale to thrive.
Clewiston never flourished that way.

Tampa banker Alonzo Clewis is largely responsible for the town's first development in 1920.

Clewis, the town's namesake, partnered with Philadelphia investors John and Marion O'Brien to establish a picturesque lakeside town.

The town has changed little from their blueprints. The street grids and development pattern haven't deviated much from their plans, nor has the town burst from its boundaries, the way many coastal communities have.

Clewiston's median household income in 2005 was $39,100, compared with $42,433 for the state. The median home value in the town was $88,100, compared with $189,500 for Florida.

U.S. Sugar has pumped billions into the local economy. It helped pay for a library, community swimming pools and one of the town's most beloved amenities, an 18-hole golf course. The company even offered college scholarships to area students.

The community is an homage to all things sugar.

Visitors driving on the town's main drag, called Sugarland Highway, are greeted by signs that say: "Clewiston. America's Sweetest Town."

High school athletes hold their games in Cane Field Stadium and kids play at Candy Cane Park.

Future Without 'Sugar'

Residents are trying to be hopeful, but discouragement is everywhere.

Early one morning after the announcement, Sonny's Bar-B-Q, which several residents deemed Clewiston's best restaurant, burned down. Authorities have determined the fire was not intentional.

Residents took it as a bad sign.

The town's only movie theater is for sale. A hastily spray-painted "X" shows the price slashed from $495,000 to $395,000. The for-sale sign rests near a marquee advertising the Disney robot movie "WALL-E" and "Hancock," about a drunken superhero played by Will Smith.

Another bad sign.
Withers isn't convinced the refinery will close, but he won't be around if it does.

He has an agreement to sell the barbershop to someone in New York.

He can decide when to complete the deal. It could be this year. It could be the next.

For now, he spends downtime in the back office on the Internet trying to meet available women in the Philippines, where he plans to move.

"It's nice there, simple," said Withers, 62. "And it's a long way from the trouble here."

The demise of U.S. Sugar has given hope to those who say it will finally spark a renaissance for Clewiston.

They say the company used its muscle to prevent new businesses from coming to town that might have driven up wages or competed for workers. In Hendry County, where Clewiston is, job growth is less than 30 percent of the Florida average.

Residents also complained that the company has refused to sell land near town that could have spurred development.

"The company has been a blessing and a curse," said the Rev. Angel Ramos, pastor of First Community Presbyterian Church. "It's fueled the economy, but it's also had a stranglehold on the economy."

Others think the refinery will keep running under a different name.

Florida Crystals and Okeelanta Corp., South Bay companies started by Cuban exiles in the late 1950s, own land crucial to the Everglades restoration project. Cuban sugar mogul Alfonso Fanjul Sr. and other exiles started the companies after leaving the country when Fidel Castro seized power and their assets.

Some think state leaders will use U.S. Sugar's refinery with millions of dollars in recent upgrades as part of a trade with Florida Crystals and Okeelanta.

Even the most optimistic residents think any meaningful resurgence will take time, especially one that hinges on a complex land swap and the whim of shifting political winds in Tallahassee.

Others have floated the idea that perhaps a food producer would buy the refinery, the largest of its kind in the world. Or maybe the plant could be remade into a biofuel production facility.

A few people think tourism could become the community's salvation as more anglers discover the trophy bass, catfish and other game fish in Lake Okeechobee.

That, too, could take decades.

"They spent 100 years to make it this way, and now they'll spend 100 years trying to put it back," said Chuck Roseboom, who just moved back from Fort Myers.

A Company's Grip

News of the closure has emboldened some critics who might have otherwise kept quiet.

"Sugar is the only game in town, and they kept it that way," said Audie Hooks, 86.

Hooks owned several used-car lots over the years.

"I stayed out of the way of Sugar, and they didn't bother me," he said. "As a general rule, you either get along with Sugar, or you leave."

Now Hooks helps out at Clewiston Pawn.

The shop buys and sells guns, baseball cards, generators, lawn equipment, tools, fishing rods and jewelry.

A few years back, a customer wanted a boom-box stereo on sale for $40.

The customer didn't have money, but he did have a potbellied pig.

"I said, 'Give me $5 and the pig, and you can have the stereo,'" said owner David Angell, whom everybody knows as Frog.

"Next thing you know, I had a pig," he said.

Angell tried to find the pig a home, calling at least six potential buyers.

No one was interested.

"So we ate it," he said, somewhat apologetically. "Best damn pig I ever ate."

Angell considers his business a good barometer for how things are going in the community.

Guns have become Angell's hottest seller lately as U.S. Sugar has axed hundreds of workers.

"There have been a lot more home invasions and burglaries," Angell said. "People want protection."

Said Angell: "People are living on the edge."

Harlem's Plight

The closure of U.S. Sugar will be particularly hard on Harlem, a black community on the southwestern corner of Clewiston, just west of the refinery.

Of the 2,700 people who live in Harlem, 95.4 percent are black, according to U.S. Census data. The median income is $22,400, about half the statewide median.

Blacks make up a large percentage of refinery workers and have suffered an equal share of the layoffs.

Moses Wilson, 40, has mixed feelings about the company and the town's future.

He worked at the refinery for five years crushing cane before being laid off in 2005.

People frequently didn't show up for work, so those who did were forced to work double shifts.

"It was crazy," he said while washing his Nissan Maxima. "Nobody wanted to come to work."

But the pay was good, generally $900 a week during harvest.

He now works for Goodwill Industries International, through a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He spends his days mowing the dike around Lake Okeechobee.

It can be steamy work, but at $14 an hour, the pay is good and steady.

These days, dozens of people who got the ax from U.S. Sugar are applying for mowing jobs. Wilson doesn't want to lose his.

The company has cut its work force nearly in half from its peak, including roughly 750 jobs since 2000.

"Without Sugar, this is going to be a hard place to live," he said.

Fate Of Farmers

Terry Jackman is a cattle rancher who rents about 1,500 acres to U.S. Sugar for sugar cane and citrus crops.

"One more farmer down the drain," said Jackman, 58. "I am worried to death."

Jackman's blame falls squarely to Gov. Charlie Crist, who orchestrated the deal.

"Farmers are going to become extinct when this is all over," he said.

About 10 days ago, the head of the South Florida Water Management District came to a standing-room-only meeting at the John B. Boy Auditorium in Clewiston to try to alleviate concerns from local officials who felt excluded from the negotiations.

Carol Wehle, the agency's executive director, told the crowd that the state wants to ensure the deal won't hurt the community, and that many jobs could be created by the environmental restoration.

"A lot of this is lip service," former Clewiston Mayor John Perry said in an interview after the meeting. "It's going to be a death blow to a lot of people. I think U.S. Sugar was broke, and this is the state's way of bailing them out."

Carl Berner is a third-generation resident of Clewiston.

His grandfather came to the area to dredge and drain the Everglades to help create the rich, mucky soil that his family now farms.

"That was his proudest accomplishment," said Berner, 53. "Now, the irony is they are spending all this money and going through all this effort to flood it again."

Survival At Brenda's

The owner of Brenda's bar is embracing the uncertainty.

"I am not worried about the town," said Bobby Mitchell, who bought the bar from his mother-in-law, Brenda, about a year ago. "People are going to drink no matter what, even if they don't have money for rent."

U.S. Sugar workers often come to Brenda's to relax after a shift.

Once the town's only bar, it is now among the town's last refuges for serious drinkers.

The sign outside says the bar opens at 10 a.m., but the regulars know it opens about 8 a.m. By 10, a few regulars can be heard debating whether it's too early for a bump of Jack Daniel's.

On Sundays, they hold an informal church service led by "anybody who feels like talking," said Diane Forrester, a bartender whose father, ex-husband and former fiance all worked for U.S. Sugar.

The bar used to have a cage where customers danced to the country western or rock 'n' roll songs that blasted from the jukebox.

Forrester had to explain to patrons that the law required any dancer to wear at least one item of clothing.

The most high-spirited dancers wore nothing but a sock.

A lot of naked women danced in Brenda's over the years, Forrester said. A few naked men, too.

It was a big draw.

Mitchell sheepishly admitted that his wife made him remove the cage when he bought the bar from her mother.

Now the remaining amenities are the jukebox, a pool table and two televisions.

Forrester and Mitchell figure if they can survive without the dancing cage, they can survive without U.S. Sugar.

Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668 or bhelgeson@tampatrib.com.

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