A sugar-beet town since 1899

Caro is sugar-beet country, and it has been for well over a century. The sugar factory on the edge of town opened in 1899, back when farmers hauled their beets in by horse-drawn wagon. It’s still running today. Michigan Sugar calls it the oldest operating sugarbeet factory in the United States. The plant is part of the farmer-owned cooperative whose factories anchor the whole Thumb region, and it is one of the bigger employers around Caro.

That farm economy shows up all over town. The Tuscola County Fair has been held in Caro since the 1880s — a real agricultural fair with livestock, crops, and a midway. The county is full of row-crop farms growing beets, beans, corn, and wheat. If you’re moving to the area, expect the rhythms of a farm town. Trucks haul beets to the factory in the fall (the “campaign,” they call it). You can smell the processing plant during the season, and the fairgrounds is the center of things every summer.