Tongjingyuan Sugar Factory

Established around 1917 by Nanwan Sugarcane Nursery Company (南灣蔗苗養成公司), which was soon restructured into Kinnan Takushoku Company (展南拓殖株式會社), which also managed freight and passenger railways in the area as well as coal mines in Nanzhuang. It specialized in brown sugar production but, after facing financial difficulties in the late 1930s, this factory was acquired by Tokyo Sugar Company (東京製糖株式會社). Production expanded in cooperation with the Imperial Japanese Navy, who soon operated an underground factory (日本海軍飛行隊地下工場) for the conversion of sugar into airplane fuel. In the post-war era the factory was acquired by Lin Weigong (林為恭), former mayor of Toufen, but it eventually went out of business, possibly as late as the 1980s. Nowadays traces of the old sugar factory can still be found in the jungle just off the main trail, which traces the route of the old sugar railway spur line, but there really isn’t much to see.