Dagangshan Sugar Factory

A private sugar factory on the north bank of the Erren River (二仁溪) in Tianliao, Kaohsiung, founded in 1905 and taking the Dagangshan name in 1936. Locals knew it as Longchang (隆昌糖廠) after its operating company and it was later renamed Zhonghua Sugar Factory (中華糖廠). Reportedly the largest privately owned sugar factory in Taiwan, it made brown sugar from cane grown on the alkaline badland soils across the district. Low sugar prices closed it around 1982, and the land has since passed to another company that cleared most of the ruins, leaving a lone chimney visible from the roadside and a gate bearing the insignia of the last company working the site.