Description

The Imperial Crown has become as much a symbol of the City of Sugar Land as it has been for the Imperial Sugar Company for almost 150 years. However, sources differ on the origin of the Imperial name. The company had its beginnings in Sugar Land when Colonel Edward H. Cunningham built the first sugar refnery in Texas on the site that was originally Oakland Plantation where sugar cane had been grown since 1843. Some sources assert Colonel Cunningham, in partnership with Littleberry A. Ellis, built a new 600-ton raw sugar mill on Ellis’s land and named the mill “Imperial”. Altogether, Ellis and Cunningham invested more than $1 million in improvements, including a state-of-the art refinery.

Others credit the name to I.H.Kempner, who with his partner William T Eldridge acquired the Cunningham land in 1908. It’s said that the name came from New York City’s Hotel Imperial, one of the lavish hotels found in the city’s Herald Square in the 1890s. As a college student, Kempner visited the hotel and was impressed with it. He borrowed the name for his sugar company, even copying the crown symbol from the hotel stationery for his logo.

A third version combines the two, contending that Kempner associated the Imperial name with the New York hotel and decided to name his venture the Imperial Sugar Company.

This crown, proudly displayed in the Sugar Land Heritage Foundation Museum, is one of a pair that adorned the top of the columns on either side of the gated entrance to the refinery. For many years, Imperial Sugar Company employees passed the twin crowns as they came and went to and from their jobs.