Oxnard's name grew from a sugar beet factory

Oxnard’s beginning is easier to remember once you picture a giant brick sugar beet factory rising near farm fields. The city did not start as a beach brand or harbor stop. It grew around agriculture, workers, a town square, and a very large factory.

The American Beet Sugar Factory was built in 1898 on a 100-acre site between Fifth Street and Wooley Road. The former site is now a Ventura County landmark. The factory had a daily capacity of 2,000 tons, and its tall smokestacks and brick mass sat a few blocks northeast of the town site that became Oxnard.

The factory pulled the town into being. Sugar beets had become promising on the Oxnard Plain, and the Oxnard brothers built the plant after local farmers pledged land for beets. A town quickly formed nearby, with businesses, homes, schools, churches, and a plaza.

In 1903, the City of Oxnard incorporated and took its name from the brothers tied to the factory. That name can sound abstract if you do not know the backstory. Once you do, it points straight to the farm-and-factory mix that helped build the city.

Oxnard has grown far beyond that beginning, but the sugar beet story still gives downtown and the historic district a sturdy first chapter.