Adolph Claus J. Spreckels (July 9, 1828 – December 26, 1908) (his last name has also been misspelled as Spreckles) was a major industrialist in Hawai'i during the kingdom, republican, and territorial periods of the islands' history. He also involved himself in several California enterprises, most notably the company that bears his name, Spreckels Sugar Company. Early life Spreckels was born in Lamstedt, Hanover, now a city of Germany. In 1846, he left his homeland to start a new life in the United States, with only one German Thaler in his pocket. In 1852, he married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Christina Mangels (1829-1910), who had immigrated to New York City with her brother three years earlier. They had 13 children, five of whom lived to maturity: sons John Diedrich (1853-1926), Adolph Bernard (1857-1924), Claus August (1858-1946), and Rudolph (1872-1958); and daughter, Emma Claudina (1870-1924), who married Watson Ferris Hutton. Developing California The family first settled in South Carolina, where Spreckels opened a grocery-store business. Within a short time, they moved to New York City, then in 1856 relocated to San Francisco, where Spreckels began a brewery. Spreckels entered the sugar business in the mid-1860s and came to dominate the Hawaiian sugar trade on the West Coast. His first refinery, built in 1867, was at Eighth and Brannan Streets in San Francisco, but by the late 1870s, the Brannan Street facilities were running at capacity, so Spreckels chose a site in Potrero Point to open a larger sugar refinery with water access. He called his concerns the California Sugar Refinery. Spreckels used some of his wealth to purchase, beginning in 1872, the former Mexican land grant Rancho Aptos, a large tract of ranch and timber land in Aptos, California. He built a large resort hotel, and not far away, an extensive ranch complex. Spreckels was one of the original investors in the Santa Cruz Railroad, which began operation in 1875 and passed through his land on its run between Santa Cruz and Watsonville. On the Aptos ranch, Spreckels began to experiment with growing sugar beets. He induced others in the area to plant sugar beets, as well, and built a small refinery in nearby Capitola in 1874, where it operated for five years. In 1888, Spreckels established the Western Beet Sugar Company in Watsonville, which was at that time the largest beet sugar factory in the U.S. By 1890, Spreckels' main