The Mason County Historical Society

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The

Sugar Shack

The Sugar House was located on the Wendell Young Farm on S. Scottville Road. The Young Family Sugar Bush operated for three generations (Marvin D.Young; J. LeRoy Young; and Wendell M. Young) in a beautiful maple woodlot, producing sweet maple syrup from the sap of the trees.

 

Inside a sugar house would be found an arch with a series of pans located on the top. The fire for boiling the sap into maple syrup was held in the arch and it was called the evaporator. Forty to fifty gallons of maple sap is required to produce a single gallon of maple syrup. Hundreds of trees would be tapped with pails hung on the taps and daily gathering of the sap occurred in the spring of each year.

The ideal temperature for making maple syrup usually occurs in March when the daytime temperatures are in the 40’s and the nighttime temperatures are in the 20’s.