A successful sugar industry was established in the Marianas by Haruji Matsue in the early 1920's. Matsue studied argriculture
at Louisiana State University before working in a successful sugar industry in Formosa (Taiwan). His successes in Formosa led
to Japanese government support for his Saipan project. Matsue bought the assets of two failed sugar cane operations on Saipan,
paid back wages of farmers who had worked for those companies and imported additional laborers from Okinawa. Much of the
native forests if Tinian and Saipan were cut to facilitate sugar cane production. Matsue constructed a narrw gauge railroad
around the island to bring the cut cane to the Sugar mill at Chalan Kanoa. The first shipment of sugar went to Japan in 1923.
By the 1930's, the business had expanded to Tinian, with two mills and to this location on Rota. In 1936, the Marianas
mills sold 13 million yen of sugar and 1 million yen of alcohol, a by-product of sugar production. Rota, with less
land suitable for growing cane, was the last to be developed. Sugar from all three islands was shipped to Japan.
Rota Island - Mariana Islands - Micronesia