Joseph “José” Eleuterio Hatton (1854- ) was Cuban immigrant of British father and Cuban mother who through J. E. Hatton & Ca. established in 1883, owned Ingenio La Fé in San Carlos and together with Mariano Hernandez in 1882 established Ingenio San Isidro near the capital city.  With the purpose of expanding production at Ingenio San Isidro, Hatton secured financing for new machinery which he ended up under utilizing due to the lack of sugarcane to process.  Ingenio San Isidro was eventually foreclosed upon and became the property of the firm Bartram Bros.  Notwithstanding the setback, in 1916, Hatton and his son Richard, incorporated the Barahona Company, Inc. in New York to develop a sugar mill to be called Ingenio Barahona in the town of the same name.

The West India Sugar Finance Corp. was incorporated on August 26, 1913 in Connecticut to lend money to sugar companies in need of working capital.  Its initial business model called only for an initial inspection of the sugar companies to determine they were intrinsically sound, but did not require intervention or participation of any kind in the company's management.  After a meeting with Hubert Edson (1867-1963) shortly after incorporation, Thomas A. Howell, President of  the West India Sugar Finance Corp. realized it was not wise to lend money to a sugar factory and leave management in hands of of the people that had made the loan necessary.  Shortly after the meeting with Edson, the West India Management Consultation Co. was established to analyze the operation of sugar properties in preparation to taking over their management.   

Early in 1917, the West India Management Consultation Co. was retained by the Hatton’s to survey a project in Barahona which required extensive investment in land and irrigation. Hubert Edson (1868- ), the President at West India Management Consultation Co. was in charge of the survey, issued a favorable recommendation of the project only to the extent of the amount and quality of land available for cultivation and its irrigation possibilities.  The acquisition of land was then initiated, however, plans for the construction of a sugar mill were still a thought at the time. ​

The years between 1916 and 1922 were times of great prosperity for the sugar industry.  Sugar prices went sky high and sugar mills of all sizes, ages and efficiency were turning out extraordinary profits.  This era called the Dance of the Millions, changed the strategy at the West India Sugar Finance Corp. as there were no sugar properties in financial trouble that needed financing.  Their strategy went from financing others to developing new sugar mills.  The West India Management Consultation Co. took the role of modernizing and building factories for the finance corporation.

In 1920 after an investment of some $13 million in land totaling about 45,000 acres, Hatton ran out of capital to invest in Barahona and in 1921 National City Bank's subsidiary, The International Banking Corp., foreclosed on its outstanding loans and acquired title of all the assets of Ingenio Barahona C x A, owner of the sugar mill and Barahona Company, Inc., owner of the lands.  The West India Sugar Finance Corp. through its subsidiary The Cuban-Santo Domingo Sugar Development Syndicate acquired Ingenio Barahona CxA and the Barahona Company, Inc. from the International Banking Corp. and operated them as subsidiaries.  By this time, the West India Management Consultation Co. had merged into the West India Sugar Finance Corp.

The design of the new Ingenio at Barahona followed closely that of Central Tánamo in Cuba with only minor changes.  Central Tánamo was developed by the The Atlantic Fruit & Sugar So., a subsidiary of the Atlantic Fruit Co., in 1921 on land where it grew bananas.  They wanted to transform these lands into a sugar property so they authorized the West India Management Consultation Co. to design and build a very modern factory at Cayo Mambi.  Construction of Ingenio Barahona was finished in time for its first grinding season in 1922.

In 1929, as part of a reorganization plan of the Cuban Dominican Sugar Corp., Ingenio Barahona C x A and Barahona Company, Inc. were merged into a new corporation called Barahona Sugar Corp.  On January 21, 1957 Ingenio Barahona together with Ingenios Consuelo, Quisqueya and Boca Chica were acquired from the West Indies Sugar Corp. (successor to the Cuban Dominican Sugar Corp.) by dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo through Azucarera Haina C x A.  The price paid was US$35.5 million with US$10 million paid at closing and the balance to be paid in three consecutive annual installments beginning on September 1957, which payments were all made as agreed.​

After Trujillo’s death in 1961, Ingenio Barahona became the property of the Dominican State by virtue of Law No. 6106 of 14 November 1962 that created the Consejo Estatal del Azucar (CEA).  In 1999, the CEA decided to enter into thirty-year leases of the sugar mills it owned.  The Consorcio Azucarero Central (CAC) was granted rights to lease and operate Ingenio Barahona.  

Ingenio Barahona had a daily milling capacity of 4,536 m.t. of sugarcane or approximately 7% of the total national capacity.  At inception, it was the second largest sugar estate in the country after Central Romana, controlling 49,400 acres of land. ​​ Its first season was a disappointing one but from the second season on, the decision to build it proved to be a sound one.  Ingenio Barahona is the only sugar mill that has operated uninterruptedly since 1999 when the CEA decided to lease its sugar mills.