Sweet as Sugar...

Hello there!... I posted this about a week ago, then found a beautiful blog today that I fell in love with called Verde Farm where they are hosting "Farm Friend Friday"... and am linking to this fun party as well!...

Hi there!...I am linking today's post to Vintage Inspiration Fridays at Common Ground also...I have often posted about how in addition to my love of collecting vintage treasures, I also try to find out the history behind them...

Recently, I was looking at my friend Kelly's blog "Farmstead Lifestyle"... (you may remember my beautiful vintage white cowgirl boots I wore for the Barn Chicks party posts... I bought those from Kelly's shop)... on her latest post, she posted about her adorable new little country cafe she opened and also showed some darling aprons for sale in the cafe made out of vintage sugar sacks... I fell in love with them!... a closer look and I saw they were from the old Layton Sugar Factory, in Layton, Utah... a town which is about a ten minutes drive to the north of where I live!... Kelly lives in Missouri on her farm and her cafe is just across the Kansas border in Leavenworth... I talked with Kelly and told her the story about the old Layton Sugar Company and that I just had to have one of her aprons!... this is beautiful Kelly in the photo below...

Kelly is such a cutie, so full of life and her sunny disposition is contagious!... she loved hearing about the old sugar company and then told me how she came to own the old sugar sacks... she bought them last September at the Junk Bonanza in Minneapolis, Minnesota... she knew she would be opening her little cafe and bakery and thought they would make cute aprons... so she designed them herself!...I couldn't wait to put my apron on when it arrived!...

Several days ago when I talked to Kelly, I told her I would drive to Layton and try to take some photos of the old sugar company if it was still standing... it used to be on, where else, "Sugar Street"... sadly, I could not find it in the masses of industrial areas now out where farmlands once sprawled... but I did take a picture of the street sign...

Below is an old photo of the sugar company taken in 1936 provided to me by the Utah State Historical Society... they are researching more for me and will let me know all the details...where exactly it was, if it is still standing... you know me, I want to know everything!... in doing some further research, I found out that in the early 1900's sugar beet seeds and heavy equipment were transported by riverboat to, guess where!... Leavenworth Kansas!... the same town Kelly's cafe is now located in, and where she would be shipping my apron from!... The seeds and equipment were then transported by 52 ox teams across the plains to Utah...

I was so loving my little vintage sugar sack apron, I didn't want to take it off!... so I kept it on and baked an apple pie!...

For now it will hang on one of my bakers racks in my kitchen, waiting for me to bake the next pie or cake, looking so cute, and reminding me of my friend Kelly who is just "sweet as sugar"!...

I hope you will visit Kelly at Farmstead Lifestyle... more aprons will be available out of vintage flour and sugar sacks... they are so well made and such high quality, you will just love one!... I also loved what Kelly wrote to me in an email after hearing the history of things... she said what an interesting history and little life this old sugar sack has had and how it has come "full circle" with she and I... after all of these years, and so many miles away... now back "home" in Utah... don't you just love stories like this!...