Editing Riverdale, Illinois (section)

==History==
[[File:Charles Pope Beet Sugar Works.png|thumb|Image of the Charles Pope Beet Sugar Works on the Calumet River in Riverdale (1910)]]
The Village of Riverdale was incorporated in 1893.<ref name="NRHP Pacesetter">{{cite web|last=Bluestone|first=Daniel|title=Nomination of Illinois SP Pacesetter Gardens Historic District (NAID: 28892665)|date=May 15, 2005|publisher=[[United States National Park Service]]|access-date=June 13, 2023|url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892665}}</ref> In 1904 the Englishman and former Chicago glucose manufacturer Charles Pope (1843–1922) <ref>{{cite journal |title= Charles Pope, Sugar Refiner, Passes Away|journal=The Chicago Daily Tribune|date=March 26, 1922|pages=9}}</ref> purchased property in Riverdale at what is today the west side of Indiana Avenue <ref>{{cite journal |title= Some Success with Sugar Beets|journal=The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer |volume=LIII| issue = 18|date=October 31, 1914|pages=283–284}}</ref> with the intention of establishing a beet sugar factory. The property was previously occupied by The Riverdale Distillery, which had been established by the Union Copper Distilling Company of Chicago in 1871 to manufacture fermentum yeast. Located on the south bank of the Little Calumet river with access to the Illinois Central tracks, the beet sugar factory opened in 1905 with a capacity of 350 tons of beet sugar per day, a production rate that was eventually increased to 500 tons per day.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilson |first=James|title= U.S. Department of Agriculture – Report No. 80 – Progress of the Beet-Sugar Industry in The United States in 1904|year=1905 |publisher=Government Printing Office |location=New York |pages=60–61}}</ref> The factory was sold by Pope's heirs in 1922 to the Midwest Sugar Refining Company, who added sugar to the product line that was produced from cane supplied from Cuba and Puerto Rico.<ref>{{cite journal |title= New Refining Company ACQUIRES Pope Factory – Plant at Riverdale, Ill, Purchased by Midwest Refining Company from Charles Pope Heirs|journal=Facts About Sugar – A Weekly Journal of the Sugar Industry|volume=XV| issue = 20|date=November 11, 1922|pages=391}}</ref> and who the following year began a program that was intended "to expand this enterprise far beyond its present capacity so as to make the company one of the leading producers and refiners of sugar in the Middle West."<ref>{{cite journal |title= General Manager McKinney Tells About The Future Plans Of The Company |journal=The (Riverdale) Pointer|volume=XVII| issue = 8|date=November 11, 1922|pages=1}}</ref> In 1947 this enterprise was replaced by The Chromium Mining and Smelting Corporation.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brennan |first=J.H., H.E. Dunn and C.M. Cosman|title= HISTORY OF IRON AND STEELMAKING IN THE UNITED STATES - Publication in One Book of a Series of Historical Articles That Have Appeared in Journal of Metals, 1956-1961|year=1961 |publisher=Metallurgical Society of AIME |location=New York |pages=100}}</ref>