CIGAR HISTORY 1860-1910
A National Cigar Museum EXCLUSIVE
© Tony Hyman
1860 US annual cigar consumption rises to 26 per person.
1860 More than 2,000 cigar factories in US employ 25,000 people. Thirty years later, those numbers would be six times higher.
1860 Machinery for making cigars advertised in popular art magazine. Have ad
1860's British cigar makers widely adopt the cigar mould. Some reports say it was invented there.
1860's Difficulty in identifying a cigar once out of the box, British cigar makers began pasting various shapes and colors of stickers called 'tickets' on cigars. Customer complaints about damaged wrapper led to the adoption of 'rings' called bands today.
1860 Francis Asbury starts NYC business making fancy glass cigar boxes and signs. Have ad
1860 As much cigar leaf grown in Ohio (almost 5 million pounds) as in Pennsylvania and New England.
1860 Cincinnati was 4th leading cigar producing city, behind Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore.
1860 In Chicago, still the wild west, more than 224 cigar factories are in operation.
1860 John G. Root establishes factory in Reamstown, PA. Later makes JOHN BROWN cigars with the slogan “As his soul goes marching on.”
1860 Lewis Osterweis & Sons founded in New Haven, CT. Lasts until 1954.
1860 Theobald & Oppenheimer founded in Philadelphia.
1860 Pedro Murias creates LA MERIDIANA in Havana.
1860 Schmidt & Storm (forerunner of Straiton & Storm 1863) founded in NYC. The for their brand
CUCKOO claims 1861.
1860 Bottomly & Co. begin cigar manufacture in Halifax, England.
1860 Wages for carpenters and masons was 65¢ a day, sunrise to sunset.
1861-1865 US Civil War.
1861 David Swisher receives small Newark Ohio cigar factory as part of debt payment. The beginning of a huge cigar business, still in operation today (in Florida). Numerous examples of boxes, etc.
1861 Weideman Co. starts in the cigar distribution business in Detroit.
1861 Joseph Pattreiouex begins wholesale mixing of tobacco blends in Manchester, England.
1861 A. Jimenez & Sons established on Fenchurch Street in London, England, as importers of Cuban cigars, Mexican cigars, European cigars, and cigarettes from around the world. Sole importers of LA COSMOPOLITANA from Havana.
1862 US Government imposes 5 different excise taxes on cigars based on their value. Cigars valued between $5 and $10 per 1,000 were taxed $2. Cigars valued at more than $20 per 1,000 paid $3.50 per 1,000. Meets with widespread, near universal, evasion.
1862 TANSIL’S PUNCH established in New York City. Full box, more
1862? 1863 H. & J. Breitwieser founded in Buffalo. envelope, boxes
1862 W.S. Mathews & Sons established in Paducah, KY, and manufacturers and exporters of snuff, twist, and plug smoking and chewing tobacco. Still around in 1946.
1862 J.L. Van Gelder begins making cigars at St. Mary Axe, London, England.
1863 US Government requires tax stamp on every bundle or box of cigars and issues blank stamps to be filled in by tax inspectors. See Dating boxes for pictures of all tax stamp issues.
1863 US Government collects $476,589 in cigar taxes to help the war cause.
1863 US Dept. Agriculture sponsors successful experimental plantings of cigar tobacco in Illinois.
1863 Cigar industry makes life miserable for tax inspectors. Taxes collected on 200,000,000 cigars.
1863 Straiton & Storm, one of nation’s most important cigar companies, founded, introduces ROB'T BURNS and eventually OWL., Numerous examples of S & S boxes, pictures of factories
1863 Samuel Davis, Canada’s largest and most prolific cigar factory, founded in Montreal. Various boxes: FRONTIER, MUNGOES, CABLE, etc.
1863 Henry Jacobs & Co. of Montreal honors Civil Warrior STONEWALL JACKSON by naming a cigar brand after him. The brand becomes one of Canada’s biggest sellers for more than half a century.
1863 F.X. Smith, founded in McSherrystown, PA (still operating 1975). photo.
1863 The John C. Groub Co. establishes family wholesale grocery business in Seymour, Indiana, maker of Belle Brand products and seller of BILTRITE cigars. Family business for 60 years. Letterhead
1864 US Government issues five colorful new tax stamps based on a cigar’s retail selling price. Cigarettes added to the tax laws, but not important enough to print special stamps for.
1864 Canadian Government requires tax stamps on cigar boxes, issuing square, strip and diamond shaped excise and customs stamps. See Dating Canadian Boxes for more detail.
1864 Cigar industry continues to make life miserable for tax inspectors.
1864 US tax officials admit cigar tax laws are confusing and cannot be interpreted or enforced as written. Have official admission in letter.
1864± Invention of the steam press made color label lithography economical for the first time. Cubans first to adopt it. See exhibit of early labels produced on first steam presses <here>.
1864 Cigar holder patented that had a removable sponge to add flavoring to cigars.
1864 Thomas Calvert forms important label lithographic establishment in Detroit. Made 2000 impressions per 10 hour day on hand presses.
1864 Cigar Maker’s National Union of the United States founded, the “first constructive, efficient, American trade union.” The first President of the Union, Andrew Zeitler of Albany, NY,, was later killed in Civil War action.
1864 John C. Herman & Co. begins making cigars in Harrisburg, PA. Still in business in 1930, operating multiple factories.
1864 Jaime Partagas shot and killed on his plantation. Son José failed in attempted to run business. Sold out to José Bances after a few decades. Date of shooting variously reported as 1868.
1864 First crop of tobacco grown in Sumatra. Made big impact in U.S. after 1876 Centennial.
1864 An Ohio tobacco planter developed a strain called “white burley” with cream colored midrib and pale green leaves. It rapidly replaced Red Burley, from which it was developed, in fine-cut chewing tobacco and for plug. It later becomes exceedingly important in the cigarette industry.
1864 First cigar factory established in Valkenswaard, Netherlands, by the van Best Brothers.
1864 Weenen Cohen & Co. begin making cigars on Commercial Road in London, England.
1864 TOBACCO LEAF magazine founded. Important trade journal lasts for a century. Various copies.
1865 US Government completely reforms cigar tax laws, requires all cigars to be packed in boxes of 25, 50, 100, 250 or 500 and issues new denominational stamps for a brief time picturing recently assassinated President Lincoln and printed funeral black (except the yellow-green 500).
1865 HOYO de MONTERREY cigars are introduced by Jose Gener, long time Vuelta Abajo grower.
1865 MONTE CRISTO cigars begin production in Havana.
1865 Bethesda Cigar Co. established in Bethesda, Ohio. Made BLACK BALL cigars for 40+ years.
1865 John B. Adt goes into business in Baltimore as maker of ADT tobacco preparation machinery of every type for the manufacture of cigarettes, cigars, smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and snuff: dryers, coolers, cutters, separators, rollers, combs, packers, etc.
1865 Virginia leads other states by replacing the hogshead inspection system of tobacco marketing with the loose-leaf auction system for selling cigarette, snuff, and chewing tobaccos. It doesn’t become universal in the United States until 1939.
1865 First cigarette factory appears in the U.S. in New York City. Staffed primarily by immigrants from Poland, Greece and Turkey, they made Russian style “Turkish” cigarettes for other immigrants. Each roller could make about 3,000 long “clumsy” smokes a day, a total of about 20,000,000 this year..
1866 US Government issues colorful redesigned tax stamps in 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500 denominations. Orders all cigars to be packed in boxes containing those quantities.
1866 Ordinary domestic cigars sell for 5¢ or six for 25¢. they are sold at “cheap refreshment stalls, lager beer saloons, and low groceries.” The more pretentious domestic cigars are made of the best domestic tobaccos carefully handled, perhaps with a little Havana added. These sell for 10¢. Next are those made of Havana filler wrapped in Connecticut wrapper. they sell for 10¢ to 15¢. All havana cigars made here sell for 15¢ to 50¢ and are as good as those made in Cuba. Cuban cigars can be found as cheap as 15¢, but good ones cost 25¢ to $1.00. These same prices would be in effect a century later.
1866 Albert Thalheimer cigar box manufacturer, lumber mill, and tool dealer established in Reading, PA.
1866 William Tigner, cigar maker and wholesaler opens in Lima, OH.
1866 Theodore Slater established cigar factory in Washington, PA. Succeeded by his son in 1879, claims to be the first maker of stogies in Lancaster, PA. Brands include: CUBAN EXPORT, NEW ARRIVAL, LANCASTER BELLE, JERSEY CHARTER, BIG HIT, CASTELLO, SLATER’S BIG STOGIES, ROYAL BLUE LINE, GOOD POINTS, CYCLONE, CAPITOL, BROWNIES, BLENDED SMOKE, GOLD NUGGETS, BOSS STOGIES.
1866 Hicks, Elliott & Shroyer wholesalers founded in Logansport, Indiana. Many name changes later (1871, 1879, 1891, 1897), still operating in 1899 as The J.T. Elliott Co. letterhead
1866 J. Lyons opens shop at 617 Myrtle Ave, between Kent and Franklin, in Brooklyn as manufacturer and dealer in cigars, smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and snuff. Advertised “Cut plug a specialty” cut “while you wait” @ 15¢ and 20¢ a quarter pound.
1867 Canadian Government issues slightly redesigned excise and customs stamps.
1867 The Cigar Maker’s National Union of the United Statesadmits Canadian locals and changes its name to Cigar Makers international Union.
1867 G.W. Boyer, goes into cigar business in New Haven. (the STANDARD box)
1867 SANCHEZ y HAYA cigar brand created. Many examples.
1867 The Great American Cigar Co. advertised "All cigars are labeled [banded] with the company's trademark and money orders are issued, varying from $2 to $50 on the inside of labels of a certain portion of the cigars which will be cashed by the treasurer of the company in presentation at their office" Factory & Salesroom No. 24 Broadway St. Corner Church NYC.” Given that cigars cost from $1 to $15 a box during that decade, they couldn’t afford too many prize winners.
1867 M. Van Oestren begins cigar production on Commercial Street in London, England.
1867 Carl Intelmann Ald-Ges, maker of cigar moulds, founded in The Netherlands [?].
1868 US Government issues colorful redesigned tax stamps in 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500.
1868 US Government requires to be printed on all cigar boxes the name of factory owner, state and tax district in which the cigars were made and the number of cigars in the box (‘factory ID’). For regulations and examples, go <here>.
1868 US Government requires “Caution Notices” pasted on boxes forbidding reuse of the box and stamp. For regulations and examples, go <here>.
1868 US Government issues and begins requiring tax stamps on large boxes of cigarettes. Small consumer-sizepackages not yet permitted.
1868 US Government establishes 8 hour day for government workers.
1868 Canadian Government issues new series of excise and customs stamps, similarly shaped. These used until 1880.
1868 A. Hussey Leaf Tobacco Co. founded (NY, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis).
1868 Louis Kuttnauer, packer and importer of Havana and leaf tobacco, opens in Detroit.
1868 Weil & Co., New York City packers and importers of Havana tobacco, register W&C trademark. Their ads guarantee tobacco with “no guano is used.” Use of natural fertilizers was controversial.
1868 Christian Swartz begins making cigars in Norwalk, CT. Dies in 1932.
1868 Smoking cars established on British trains by law.
1868 Edward Norton begins manufacture of tin cans. The Norton Bros. ultimately became the driving force behind the consolidation of small makers into The American Can Co.
1868 Devastating ten-year-long war begins in Cuba.
1868 First MACANUDO rolled in the Caribbean.
1869 US Government issues colorful redesigned 1869 tax stamps in 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500 denominations. See Dating cigar tax stamps
1869 Little Dutch type cigar tobacco successfully developed in Ohio from seed introduced from Germany.
1869 CMIU offers temporary amnesty to allow mould workers into the CMIU. Strategy largely fails and the Union continues its battle against moulds and the people who use them.
1869 Klauber Wangenheim Co., important long-lived regional wholesalers, established in Calif.
1869 Juan F. Portuondo cigar factory established in Philadelphia, in business for 50+ years. letterhead, can, boxes, signs, other
1869 Martinez Ybor moves EL PRINCIPE DE GALES factory to Key West, Florida, from Havana to escape the war.
1869 Jul(ius?) Pepperberg founds Pepperberg Segar Co. in Plattsmouth, Nebraska; still making cigars in the late 1920’s, gone by 1936. boxes CT
1869 H.A. Klene founds cigar factory at 127 Fourth St. in Quincy Ill EXPOSITION
1869 Theodore Schumacher and Louis Ettlinger start one of the nation’s more important cigar label companies in New York City. (1869-1892).
1869 Somers Bros., one of the industry leaders, begins tin box manufacture.
1869 Charles and Ernest Wulff found Wulff Litho.
1869± McDowell & Co., established in Madras, India, as manufacturer of high quality Indian cigars including Trichinopoly, Dawsons, cheroots, Bahadur (old style), and Sumatra rattails.
1869 Reported cigarette manufacture in the US dropped from 20,000,000 in 1865 to 1,750,000 in 1869. This was due, according to the industry, to high unit cost, imperfect production, and wavering consumer interest. The industry report didn’t include under-reporting (tax evasion) in the face of new higher taxes and the requirement, starting in 1868, to apply tax stamps.
1870 US Government allows tin to be used for cigar boxes.
1870 Connecticut seedleaf is developed sometime in the 1870’s, tho by whom is unrecorded. This is the 2nd of three important Connecticut cigar tobaccos. Continued experimentation sponsored by both federal and state governments soon led to better quality cigar tobacco growing in MA, NY, PA, MD, OH and WI.
1870 World’s biggest mould and tool makers Miller, DuBrul & Peters Mfg. Co. founded in Cincinnati. Eventually offers more than 2,000 different sizes and shapes of cigar mould.
1870 S.R. Kocher, maker of NABOBS, QUAKER, VOLITTA and “special brands for reliable jobbers” founded in Factory 79, 9th District, Wrightsville, PA.
1870 Approximately 13.9 million cigarettes were smoked annually in the United States, or one-third of a cigarette per person. By 1930 consumption rose to 977 per person.
1870 W.G. Dunnington founds the Dunnington Tobacco Co. to buy, sell and export leaf tobacco from Farmville, Virginia.
1870 MacAndrews & Forbes Co., maker of Oriental Licorice paste, established in Camden, NJ.
1870 Number of lithographers listed in 1870 New York City Directory? Answer: Eighty-one.
1870 Detroit Litho Co. founded. Operates into the 1970’s.
1871-72 US Government issues still colorful redesigned 1868/1871/1872 tax stamps in 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500 denominations.
1871 The great Chicago fire. Chicago is 4th largest US city.
1871 Carl Upmann Cigar Co. founded in NYC. Factory in Miami. Various boxes, ads, photo of factory exterior.
1871 Pohalski & Co. registers MONTE CRISTO for US manufacture.
1871 Daniel Morey opens Ottumwa, Iowa’s first notable cigar factory. LA FLOR DE MAYO brand.
1871 William H. Raab (& Sons) opens cigar factory in Dallastown, PA. OPINION, PADDY CARR, MARJORIE DAW and others. Capacity 75,000 per day. Nickel and 2/5¢ cigars a specialty.
1871 Antonio Roig & Langsdorf opens large cigar factory in Philadelphia (1871-1926) GIRARD factory, boxes
1871 Eduardo H. Gato established cigar factory in Key West, FL. Boxes, factory illus.
1871 Thomas Gaved & Co. opens cigar factory on Soho Street in Liverpool, England.
1872 Charles F. Pusch founded his factory in Marysville KS. Fifteen years later his 20 rollers made him the 3rd largest of 150 Kansas cigar factories. Pusch lasted until the late 1920’s.
1872 Louis Pfaff, maker of LAWRENCE HUTTON, PRINCE HENRY, COUNTRY JUDGE, DOROTHY DODD, SAN ARDO opens in PA but their 1905 ad omits where.
1872 F.D. Stephenson begins cigar making in Birmingham, England.
1872 Ward & Robinson opens cigar factory at Belgrave-gate in Leicester, England.
1872 Partridge & Sons open cigar factory on Mansfield Street in Leicester, England.
1873 Fiscal Depression in U.S. begins, lasts three years.
1873 Entrepreneur Francis Korbel and brothers Anton and Joseph in business in San Francisco (F. Korbel & Bros) as lithographers, cigar box makers. They eventually owned a sawmill, published THE WASP, and established Korbel winery. Printed labels 1873-1885 (possibly earlier). RED TAPE box 1873
1873 Starlight Bros, makers of LA ROSA de PARIS, established in Passaic, New Jersey.
1873 Manuel A. Suarez y Cia., leaf wholesalers, founded in Havana. Manuel dies in 1894 and his 20 year old son, Manuel “Chacho” Suarez took over. Chacho died in 1933, replaced by his son-in-law, Dr. Mario Cuervo.
1873 Thomas J. Schaeffer, “maker of fine cigars,” opens a factory in Schaefferstown, PA.
1873 National Cigar Manufacturing Co. founded. Ultimately has factories in New York City, Albany, and Lancaster, PA.
1873 Emil Steffens founds NYC lithographic company. Becomes Steffens, Jones & Co. from 1906-1920,
1873 ROMEO Y JULIETA created (says Mara) by Inocencio Alvarez Rodriguez and Jose Mannin
Garcia who already owned a factory. Sold in 1903 to Jose Rodriguez Fernandez (Don Pepin)
1873 Isaac D. Levy & Co. begin making cigars on Blossom Street, London, England.
1874 R.G. Sullivan opens large 350 roller factory in Manchester, NH. Best known for 7-20-4 and small custom event boxes. Will last to celebrate 80th anniversary. Many artifacts
1874 San Francisco cigar makers adopt a white union label to distinguish their cigars from Chinese goods.
Generally considered to be the first Union label.
1874 John M. Stevens, Maker of cigar boxes and dealer in ribbons and labels established in Allentown, PA.
1874 UNITED STATES TOBACCO JOURNAL founded in New York City.
1874 WESTERN TOBACCO JOURNAL “full of distinctively original statistics and current news” founded in Cincinnati. Subscriptions $2.
1874 Goodman & Harris open cigar factory at Humberstone Gate in Leicester, England..
1874 Tobacconist Robert Graham, Ltd, opens in Edinburgh, Scotland. Still selling cigars 125 years later.
1874 “That smoker has reached the acme of skill...who can blow three concentric rings and spit through the inner circle without causing a line to waiver.” Quoted from MY CIGAR magazine, 1874.
1875 US Government issues redesigned “March 3, 1875” tax stamps, printed in black ink on blue paper.
1875 The New York Times: “From the fine gentlemen who buy their cigars at Delmonicos, or get them direct from the importers, down to the little barefoot boys in the streets, who buy their smokes from the Chinamen at the corner or pick up the stumps that are thrown away, all smoke.”
1875 Reliance / Hilson Company in NYC making 20,000,000 cigars annually. Numerous boxes
1875 ROMEO y JULIETA first appears in 1875? very early label, boxes (see 1850)
1875 Ashland Cigar & Tobacco Co. established in Ashland, Wisc. (wholesale makers) letterhead
1875 Andrew Steffen opens factory in Indianapolis, maker of TISH-I-MINGO.
1875 Kuhles & Stock, maker of SEAL OF MINNESOTA, PRIVATE SMITH, AQUILAS established at 353 Jackson in St. Paul, Minn.
1875 St. Louis cigar maker’s union issues a red colored union stamp.
1875 Sam Gompers and Adolph Strasser form CMIU Local 144 from many smaller NYC unions. Gompers is elected first President.
1875 Cigar Makers’ Union publishes first issue of The Cigar Makers’ Official Journal which lasts until 1972.
1875 Book published giving “long time successful” formulae for coloring poor quality tobacco, adding flavors, and for giving boxes a nice smell.
1875 L.F. Grammes & Sons, manufacturers of cigar box machinery, established in Allentown, PA. Fifty years later is maker of metal novelty boxes with inside mirrors. Brass and other boxes.
1875 British Parliament passed the Trade Marks Act which, among other things, stopped British cigar makers from labeling all their cigars as being Havanas. No such prohibition against using the word Havana ever passed in the United States.
1875 Cigarette consumption 42,000,000; cigar consumption 5,000,000,000+ (tax paid cigars, that is).
1875 Official government figures based on tax receipts say the average person in the US (including all men, women, children) smoke 48 cigars a year, uses almost 3 pounds of chewing tobacco and smokes up a little over a pound of smoking tobacco.
1875 Eli Gillard begins cigar production on East Street in Taunton, England.
1870’s Bohemian immigrant women become big factor in NYC and Pittsburgh cigar industry.
1876 United States’ 100th Birthday. The Centennial celebrated. Three dozen tobacco and cigar companies exhibited at the Centennial.
1876 The Dutch introduced Sumatran tobacco to various New York and Philadelphia companies, who were immediately hooked. Sumatran was so thin and so elastic that two pounds would wrap 1,000 cigars when it took five to ten pounds of Connecticut wrapper to do the same.
1876 Meyer & Mendelsohn go into business as growers, packers and dealers of Connecticut tobacco.
1876 German leaf tobacco company M. Meerapfel Sohne A.G. founded. Still in family hands in 2000.
1876 Adam Kohler opens cigar factory in Dallastown which 20 years later was producing 75,000 a day.
1876 LA FLOR DE JUAN LOPEZ established by Juan Lopez Diaz in Havana.
1876 Illinois ships more than 11,000,000 pounds of tobacco, growing cigar tobacco since 1863.
1877 Lucke & Co. founded in Cincinnati, Ohio. Maker of TELESCOPE, ROLLED, many others.
1877 Adolph Strasser became President of the Cigar Makers International Union and leads an October strike in NYC involving 15,000 cigar rollers. Described by historians as a loss because specific goals were not attained but when settled in 1878 the CMIU had sick, death, strike and out of work benefits (which they were able to keep until the late 1920’s).
1877 Ed Weiland established cigar factory in Peru, Indiana. Still making HAVANA ROSE in 1912.
1877 Former Cuban factory owned by D.L. Trujillo, restarted on 10th St. in New York City.
1877 J.B. Diaz opens business in Havana as packer, dealer and exporter of all grades of Cuban leaf. Around 50 years later. See 1931.
1877 Abraham Waldstein founds the Pioneer Cigar Box Factory and label printer in San Francisco (1877-1892).
1877 Hooper brothers establish California Cigar Box Co. in San Francisco. (1877-1886).
1877 H.W. Heffener cigar box maker and label printer established in York, PA.
1877 F.G. Barnes & Co. opens cigar factory on Queen’s Road in Leicester, England.
1878 US Government allows novelty packaging. Cigar industry responds with great inventiveness.
1878 US Government issues redesigned 1878 tax stamps, Design continues, only date changes, until 1910. See: Dating Revenue Stamps.
1878 Bloody ten-year-long Civil War ends in Cuba with nearly a quarter of the male population dead.
1878 Women had been rolling cigars for a century on farms and small rural chinchalles. First women openly employed as rollers in Havana factory making LA AFRICANA.
1878 Havana type tobacco successfully planted in Ohio, called Zimmer after developer Jacob Zimmer. Seed reportedly a Havana strain imported from Germany.
1878 Because of his role in the 1877 strike, Samuel Gompers is blacklisted and unable to find work for four months in a city with nearly 1,000 cigar factories. Puts severe strain on pregnant wife and four kids.
1878 Neal & Binford (later M.F. Neal & Co.) established in Richmond, Virginia, as importer and manufacturer of “Casing Materials, Powdered Fruit Flavorings, Powdered Spices, St. John’s Bread, Deer Tongue Leaves, Tonka Beans, Sugars, Syrups and Honeys, Tin Foils, Waxed and Glassine Papers” for the tobacco trade.
1878 Diego Montero (later Hijos de Diego Montero) established in Havana as dealer, packer and exporter of cigars and leaf tobacco.
1878 U.S. Frame & Picture Co. established in New York City, specialists in frames and mouldings for show cards and advertising.
1878 C.D. Fothergill opens tobacco works on Church Street in St. Helens. Begins cigar production at unknown date..
1878 Advertising circular from British importer quotes a government document claiming that many so-called Havana cigars "are composed of 'sugar, alum, lime, meal, rhubarb leaves, saltpetre, fuller's earth, chromate of lead, peat, moss, common burdock leaves, salt, lamp black, and dyes,' and are occasionally steeped in strong tobacco water to give them a flavour."
1878 British publication lists their selection of “the best Cuban brands”: Partagas, La Intimidad, Cabañas, Villar y Villar, El Gaucho, Henry Clay, H.Upmann, Caliope, Paz de China, Confederacion Suiza, La Española, A. Murias y Cia., La Carolina, Ramon Allones, V. Arango, Por Larrañaga, Jose Morales and Cabarga y Cia.
1879 US Government allow cigars to be packed in boxes of 200.
1879 US Government issues long colorful import stamps dated 1879, design used until 1904 but with minor changes in 1895.
1879 Nicholas Witsch and Jacob Schmidt start one of the nation’s more important cigar label companies (1879-1892).
1879 David, David and E.W. Johns start Johns Bros. lithographic establishment in Cleveland (1879-1902).
1879 Herrman Dohm founds litho company that becomes Dohm & Rosa in 1887. (1879-1913)
1879 Inventory taken at Heppenheimer & Maurer, one of the more important New York City lithographic establishments specializing in cigar labels, showed 25,000 registered lithographic stones, 7,000,000 cigar labels, 725 different cigar box edgings created by 22 on-the-premises artists plus Mr. Maurer himself.
1879 Yocum Bros. establish cigar factory in Reading PA. Makers of Y-B cigars for 70+ yrs.
1879 Somers Bros. takes out patent on process for lithography on tin.
1879 Cigar tobacco production in Pennsylvania hits 36,900,000 pounds, making PA the largest grower of cigar tobacco and third largest tobacco growing state. New York state added another 6,480,000 pounds to the nation’s cigar tobacco crop.
1880± US Government requires reworded longer Caution Notice, emphasizing destruction of the stamp.
1880 Tobacco tax accounted for one-third of Federal revenue. 50% of the collections came from smoking and chewing tobacco, 40% from cigars and cheroots, 8% from snuff and less than 2% from cigarettes.
1880 Canadian Government issues new series of strip tax stamps, doing away with diamond and square shapes. Stamps now color coded in green, red, black or blue according to where the tobacco came from. Also requires Caution Notices to be added to cigar boxes. See Dating Canadian Cigar Boxes for more detail.
1880 Boston repeals its ban on smoking cigars on the streets.
1880 Cigarette consumption rises to half billion against six billion cigars. During this decade, cigarettes made with Turkish tobaccos blended with U.S. burley overtake Cuban cigarettes in popularity in Europe because they were cheaper and more available. Cuban tobacco was always a premium item in limited supply made worse by the Cuban ten years war (1868 - 1878).
1880 Joseph R. Otto founds cigar box making and label printing company in Syracuse, NY. (1880-1885).
1880 Henry E. Weidemeyer founds two-man cigar factory in Marysville, KS, which lasts until 1951.
1880 Illinois factories roll 132,500,000 cigars and 2,000,000 cigarettes.
1880 Cigar Maker’s Union (CMIU) introduces the Union “Blue Label” a stamp to be applied on boxes of Union made cigars. Believed to be second National Union label. See examples in Dating.
1880 The Gremio de Fabricantes (Manufactuer’s Union) was organized in Havana. See 1884.
1880 Cuba: Don Jose LaMadrid Piedra founds cigar factory which within 20 years was the best known Cuban brand outside of Cuba itself. Principle market was the U.S.
1880 Christian Swartz co-founds OLD WELL Cigar Co. (and brand) in Norwalk, CT. Brand lasts 50 years.
1880 Joseph Samuel & Son begin importing Cuban and Philippine cigars, Fenchurch St., London, England.
1880 Ernest Taylor founds the Breeze Lane Works in Liverpool, England, specialists in high class decorated tins for the cigarette and tobacco trade. They advertised “oblong, square and round tins, decorated and plain, in an exceptionally large range of shapes and sizes.”
1881 Cigar Maker’s International Union membership reaches 10,000.
1881 American Federation of Labor (A.F. OF L.) founded.
1881 TOBACCO WORLD magazine founded.
1881 TOBACCO journal founded in London, United Kingdom, as a paper for manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retail tobacconists.
1881 E. Goldberg, Kalamazoo, Michigan begins producing LITTLE BEAUTIES.
1881 James Bonsack invents efficient cigarette-making machine that, with minor improvements, could, by 1884, make 120,000 cigarettes a day, production equivalent to 40 better paid expert hand rollers.
1881 James Buchanan Duke goes into the cigarette business in North Carolina, hiring 125 rollers from New York City. Makes just shy of 10,000,000 his first year.
1882 US Government passes Chinese Exclusion Act.
1882 LA CORONA brand and factory sold, soon thereafter resold. Eventually bought up by the American Tobacco Trust.
1882 GARCIA y VEGA brand cigars founded.
1882 E.C. Franke & Co., leaf tobacco dealers, established in Kentucky. Still operating in 1936.
1882 Charles Schiege Jr. builds a small one-room cigar factory behind his home in Round Top, PA, where he produced TEXAS STAR, LA ROSA SUPREMA, GREAT SPORT, and BOSS. In 1932 he celebrated his 50th anniversary making cigars with a specially packaged BOSS, then shut down.
1882-1960, 1987- BELINDA registered in Havana, Cuba, by Francisco Menendez Martinez.
1882 M.C. Carathanassis & Co. start operations on Island of Samos as maker of Turkish cigarettes and international dealers in Turkish tobacco.
1882 Spain lifts government monopoly over tobacco growing, sale, and manufacture in the Philippines, effective January 1st of 1883.
1883 US Government lowers taxes and issues tax stamp series of 1883, used until 1898.
1883 Canadian Government issues new series of tax stamps, used until 1897.
1883 F.M. Howell, cigar box maker and cigar label printer, founded in Elmira, NY. One of first printers to extensively use zinc plates rather than limestone. Early user of photographic processes. Perhaps one reason the company is still around today.
1883 Conover Litho Co, founded in Coldwater, Michigan, as cigar box label printer. (1883-1931).
1883 More than 5,000 U.S. cigar factories rolled 3,200,000,000 cigars using 284,000,000 pounds of domestic tobacco and 13,800,000 pounds of leaf from Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Sumatra. That’s less than one-half of one percent. The word “Havana” on cigar boxes usually refers to a strain of domestic tobacco and DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN the cigars contain imported tobacco.
1883 According to the CMIU, 75,000 cigar rollers worked in the U.S., the largest cigar factory employing 2,000 people. They don’t say where it was located, though NYC and Baltimore would be prime candidates.
1883 The suction board was invented and patented; it was soon elaborated into the suction rolling table. Held wrapper leaf in place so movable die could cut it accurately depending on the size and shape cigar being manufactured. Huge innovation leading to greater uniformity and faster production.
1883 John Player begins manufacture of PLAYER’S cigarettes in England. Total number of English cigar, cigarette and smoking tobacco factories reached a never-again-equalled high of 444. To put that number in perspective, that’s slightly more than were in California that year.
1883 Lifting of the Spanish monopoly results in LA INSULAR cigar and cigarette factory established in Manila, Philippine Islands.
1883 House of Rinaldo cigar distributors founded in San Francisco. Company lasts 50+ years.
1883 A. Sauer sets up a one-man cigar factory in Huron, So.Dak. Lasts 30+ years. COMMANDERY
1883 J.U. Fehr & Son dealers in Havana, Sumatra and domestic tobacco established in Reading, PA.
1884 Julius Fecht starts factory in Ottumwa, Iowa, maker of “shaped” THREE STAR, UNIVERSAL brands. Lasts 70 years, closing its doors in 1953.
1884 Brothers M. and A.M. Frankle open a 3 man cigar factory and cigar brokerage in Youngstown, Ohio.
1884 Date of earliest cigar box in the NCM collection featuring de-nicotinized tobacco.
1884 F.D. Grave & Son cigar factory founded in New Haven, Connecticut. Made JUDGES CAVE and other cigars 75+ years.
1884 Angel LaMadrid Cuesta, senior, opens a three roller cigar factory in Atlanta, Georgia. In conjunction with Peregrino Rey, started the brand CUESTA-REY.
1884 In Cuba, the Union de Fabricantes de Tabacos de la Habana was founded as a successor to the Union established in 1880. See 1896.
1884 India’s tobacco harvest huge, 2nd only to US worldwide. 340,000,000 pounds, mostly made into cigars and cheroots.
1884 William Steiner and Isaac Rosenthal found cigar label lithographic company. See 1896.
1884 J.B. Duke patents the cardboard push pack used for 10 cigarettes or small cigars.
1885 Canadian Government allows boxes of 10 cigars (12 years before the U.S.) and issues strangely long 10 denomination stamp.
1885 Oscar L. Schwencke and Henry Pfitzmayer found one of nation’s more important lithographic company. Moves from NYC to Brooklyn in 1902±, and becomes Moehle Litho in 1908. (1885-1930).
1885 Harry Mortimer founds what becomes Sattler & Lee (1887) in Spring Valley, MN.
1885 Brooklyn, NY, is home to more than 800 cigar factories, only 30 of which have more than 10 employees.
1885 First cigar factory opened in Seattle, Washington Territory. At peak had 9 rollers, packer, stripper. Down to one man, it continues for more than 50 years, closing in 1941.
1885 P.P. Martinez founds cigar company responsible for MEXICAN COMMERCE cigars in Dallas.
1885 P. Lorillard operates an 8,000+ volume free library, game rooms and school for the 4,000 employees of the Jersey City plant. The school has ten teachers and can accommodate 350 children.
1885± Miller & Markley open Fact. 255 in New Oxford, PA, to make cigars for the wholesale and jobbing trade. Slogan: “We make just what you want.”
1886 Cigar Maker’s Union membership reaches 24,000. Samuel Gompers becomes International vice-president.
1886 The Pacific Coast Co-Operative Cigar Manufacturing Company founded in San Francisco as part of anti-Chinese movement. See White Labor exhibit in the NCM.
1886 Red Lion, PA, boasts 30 cigar factories, large and small, which paid $500,000 in federal taxes.
1886 Jacob Obrecht opened Baltimore factory making 60,000 cigars a week. He joined 640 other Baltimore cigar factories. Approximately 60 other Baltimore factories made cigarettes, chew and smoking tobacco.
1886 Krueger & Braun founded as cigar label printers in NYC. Taken over in 1915 by William Steiner & Sons.
1886 Cornell Printing Co. founded in Elmira, NY. Printed cigar labels 1886-1900.
1886 Daniel Eyster maker of JIM TURNER, HAP WARD, JUDGE MARSHALL and private brands established in York New Salem, PA.
1886 Charles Shonk established tin lithographic business in Chicago. (1886-1907).
1886 TOBACCO Magazine founded.
1886 Manhattan was home to 1,960 cigar factories of which 3.9% employ 100+ rollers. California was home to 385 cigar factories of which 3.8% employ 100+ rollers. In contrast Florida was home to 154 cigar factories of which 30.5% employ 100+ rollers (the highest percentage of large factories among states). Illinois ranked 3rd in number of cigar factories with 1,197 but only 3 (1/5 of 1%) employed 100 rollers.
1886 Thorpe & Ricks established in Rocky Mount, NC, as buyers, packers and exporters of bright tobacco.
1886 A business Directory for the city of St. Louis, Missouri, lists 59 brands of cigarettes available through one distributor in that city. Brands include Between the Acts, Catarrh, Cinnamon, Lawn Tennis and Polo.
1886 Parliament permitted experimental tobacco planting in England but the 1887 crop proved to be "rank in flavour and of poor quality, being inferior to the commonest varieties of leaf imported into this country."
1887 Canadian Government issues strangely long 3 and 6 denomination stamps.
1887 Congress passes instate commerce law regulating railroads.
1887 Iowa’s first wooden cigar box factory established in Ottumwa, IA. Output 1,000 boxes a day, reaching twice that by the 1920’s.
1887 Buffalo, NY, cigar maker Henry Breitweiser advises in his catalog “If you think smoking is injurious to your health, stop smoking in the morning.”
1887 The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Manual published in London contains 16 pages of formulae for flavoring cigars and for making cigar boxes smell like they’re made of cedar.
1887 V.M. Ybor’s Key West factory burns down. Moves PRINCIPE DE GALES to Tampa.
1887 Charles Cusick & Son established in Weedsport, New York, specializing in Onondaga tobacco.
1887 W. Sheinker & Son, maker of fine flavoring materials for cigarette, cigar, pipe and chewing tobaccos, established in New York City. “Send us your flavoring problems.”
1887 Schwencke & Pfitzmayer becomes O.L. Schwencke Litho., NYC.
1887 San Francisco Cigar Makers’ International Union Local 228 issues dark blue stamp as part of the anti-Chinese movement in California. See White Labor exhibit.
1887 D.L. Trujillo moves his New York City factory to Key West. Pictured.
1888 John & Harry Swisher form Swisher Bros. in Ohio. Ultimately moves to Florida and becomes huge maker of machine made cigars. RED RANGER, KING EDWARD, SWISHER SWEETS, other.
1888 Francisco E. Fonseca opens his first cigar factory in New York City. Three years later he would also start one in Havana. Great packaging innovator. See NCM exhibits of Cuban chests and of book-shaped boxes.
1888 Mike Glaser begins horse and wagon peddling of cigars and notions. Later joins with brother Arnold to form Glaser Bros., a San Francisco firm which by the 1950’s was nation’s largest distributor.
1888 Herman Stein opens stogie factory in Lancaster, PA, specializing in private brands for the jobbing trade. Capacity, in 1905, was 100,000 stogies daily. Made many dozens of brands.
1888 ANTONIO Y CLEOPATRA brand established.
1888 Western Cigar Co’s factory established in Denver, Colo. PIONEERS
1888 Tom Pallister founds Pallister Bros. in Ottumwa, IA. Made cigars and cigar boxes and distributed candy. Company closed in 1928 after 40 years.
1889 A.B. Hess Cigar Co. founded in Lancaster, PA.
1889 G.W. Van Slyke & Horton, Albany, NY, begin producing PETER SCHUYLER cigars.
1889 C.E. Akins, maker of felt mats for the cigar trade, established in New York City.
1889 Comas Cigarette Machine Co., established in Salem, Virginia, maker of tobacco stemming machines and all sorts of specialized machines for the cigarette industry.
1889 Wisconsin cigar tobacco crop reaches 19,123,000 pounds, mostly binder leaf.
1889 Cigarette consumption more than 2,000,000,000 a four-fold increase in 8 years. Three-fold reason: better tobacco, better packaging, better marketing.
1889 T.S. Williamson & Co., dealers and exporters of all grades of bright Virginia, dark fired Virginia and Kentucky tobaccos. established in Danville, Virginia.
1889 The brothers San Miguel go into business as packers, strippers and exporters of Puerto Rican leaf.
1889 Boyd & Co., cigar label printers (1881-1889), bought out by Heffron & Phelps.
1889 Bruns & Son, cigar label printers (1889-1896) open for business.
1889 J.B. Duke, et al., form what becomes known as the Tobacco Trust (American Tobacco Company) with intention to take over the cigarette, snuff and smoking tobacco industries, a goal at which they succeeded beyond all dreams of avarice.
1890 H.C. Pfaff founded cigar factory in Baltimore, bought in 1929, stays in business until 1963 when bought out by T.E. Brooks Company of Red Lion and closed.
1890 E.S. Sechrist, maker of EMORY MARTIN and numerous private labels founded in Dallastown, PA. Capacity 20,000 per day.
1890 Weidman Bros, cigar box makers, founded in Womelsdorf and Sinking Spring, PA. “Cigar labels and label printing; gold embossing on wood a specialty.”
1890 T.S. Albright, maker of PURA PULLMAN, UNCLE OWEN, and ROYAL AMERICAN opens at 1330 No. 10th St, Reading PA
1890 R.T. Smith maker of special brands of domestic cigars established in Red Lion, PA. (Fact. 1041)
1890 The Lukaswitz-Weaver Co., packers and dealers in Ohio leaf tobacco, established in Dayton.
1890 Cigar Makers’ Union establishes 8 hour day long before attained by workers in most other industries.
1890 A midwestern cigar maker makes approximately $9/week. A Canadian cigar maker about $6. Keeping cigar rollers is a problem for many Canadian factories. California rollers make about $7, Chinese about $5.
1890 More than 12,000 U.S. cigar factories employ 150,000 people.
1890 Consumption of chewing tobacco reaches an all-time high. Urbanization, the automobile, and alternate ways of using tobacco (the cigar and cigarette) cause a steady decline in chewing.
1890 The Philippine Islands have about 22,000 cigar rollers, all but 1,500 of whom are women.
1890 The U.S. PHARMACOPOEIA, the official listing of drugs published by the government, included tobacco as a dangerous drug.
1891 Canadian tax officials require new Caution Notices with numbered provisions.
1890 US Government passes the McKinley Tariff raising taxes on cigars and Cuban tobacco to the highest level ever. This high protectionist tariff also charged $2 a pound on Sumatran tobacco, leading to increased sales of domestic wrapper.
1891 US Government requires imported items, including boxes of cigars, to be marked with country of origin.
1891 US Government allows salesmen’s sample size boxes of 12 and 13, and issues stamps accordingly.
1891 FLOR DE FONSECA started by packaging innovator Francisco Fonseca in Havana, three years after a 19 year old Fonseca opened a factory in New York City. Brand lasted 100+ years.
1891 LA FLOR DE CANO brand created by Tomas and Juan Cano (who had started the factory 7 years earlier).
1891 Abraham Fader opened Baltimore cigar factory with 80 rollers, closed 1971.
1891 Charles Maurer opens NYC lithographic company as label and illustration printer 1891-1902.
1892 Photography and lithography were integrated by a screening process which broke the photo into a series of dots, making it possible to add photographic images to stock cigar labels. See NCM exhibit of Vanity labels.
1892 American Litho formed from merging of numerous major US cigar label printers including Harris, Heppenheimer, Schumacher & Ettlinger, Witsch & Schmidt, Donaldson Bros. and others.
1892 Independent Calvert Litho in Detroit (1864-1970) operated 22 steam presses, 50 hand presses, employed 300+ workers and had sales offices throughout the US.
1892 G.B. Perkins takes over as President of Cigar Maker’s International Union.
1892 W.H. Kildow Cigar Company, large maker of 3/5¢ and 2/5¢ cigars was founded in Tiffin, Ohio. Big user of 250 drop-front boxes.
1892 F.M. Meads opens factory 1392 in Windsor, PA, to make special brands of domestic cigars.
1892 Coony Bayer Cigar Co. established in Fort Wayne Indiana. Still around in 1920’s. Photo.
1892 Tobacco taxes amount to 15% of total US Government’s net ordinary receipts.
1892 The first Cuban Cigar Workers’ Congress was held.
1892 The Philippines ships $24,000,000 in goods to Spain: tobacco, coffee, sugar and indigo.
1893 Edward F. Noll’s Cuban Star Cigar factory founded in Dallastown, PA. 1905 capacity 30,000 a day, by 1910 was 50,000 cigars a day. Makers of LORIMER and SILVER PRINCE and numerous custom brands.
1893 Henry Gugler founds Western Label Co. in Milwaukee (1893-1896).
1893 A.L. Cuesta moves his small Georgia cigar factory to Tampa.
1893 Petre, Schmidt & Bergman form NYC box label printing company which lasts into the 1940’s after name change to Petre Litho Co. in 1925.
1893 Cigar giant Kerbs, Wertheim & Schiffer formed from merger of already large companies.
1894 US Government passes the Wilson-Gorman Tariff which wreaks havoc on the Cuban economy by removing sugar (Cuba's largest export) from the tax free list and applying a 40% tax. Cuban exports to the U.S. fell by 50% leading to socio-political strife on the Island, ultimately resulting in yet another revolution and, ultimately, the Spanish American war.
1894 S. Hernsheim, New Orleans cigarmaker of LA BELLE CREOLE claims to have the largest daily output in the U.S. Dwg of factory
1894 Cigar Maker’s Union stamp reworded with positive message. Negative “coolie” text no longer used.
1894 M. Feldman & Son open the Buckland St. Box Works (on, appropriately enough, Buckland Street, London, England) specializing in cardboard boxes for the cigar and cigarette trade.
1895 US Government redates and makes very minor changes to long colorful 1879 import stamps. The 50 denomination changed from green to red. See Dating Tax Stamps for details.
1895 J.C. Newman founded M & N Cigar Co. at 125 Bank St. (Fact. 270, 18th Dist.) in Cleveland, Ohio.
1895 40,000+ cigar factories in operation in the U.S., including buckeyes and chinchalles, officially designated as factories with less than 10 workers.
1895 Raymond E. Heacock opens cigar factory in Kearney, Nebraska. Still open in 1936.
1895 Key West cigar maker R.J. Seidenberg establishes retail outlet in Buffalo. Eventually became a chain of 15 retail outlets in 9 Eastern cities. He died in 1931.
1895 M. Weigman & Co., makers of high grade Turkish tobacco and GOLDEN HORSE cigarettes, begins production in Philadelphia.
1895 R.P. Watson Company, dealer in Virginia and Carolina leaf, opens business in Wilson, NC.
1895 William B. Beach & Co., buyers, packers and exporters of leaf tobacco, opens in Petersburg, Virginia.
1895 Chas. W. Jacob & Allison established in New York City as importers, exporters and manufacturers of a wide range of tobacco flavoring materials, glypho, tonka beans, licorice, maple sugar, powdered peaches, deer tongue, honey beans, and sprayers for making boxes smell like cedar. By the 1950’s the company was known as Wm. M. Allison & Co.
1895 G. Stalling & Co. established as packers, dealers and exporters of bright and dark-fired Virginia tobacco in Lynchburg, Virginia.
1895-1921 Cigarettes were banned from being sold in 14 states. By 1927 all such bans were lifted.
1896 The Rothschild family smoked HENRY CLAY Sobranos, at 5 shillings each, which they ordered wrapped in gold leaf about 40,000 at a time.
1896 LA PALINA brand established. Mother of William Paley (future head of CBS) poses as Spanish lady for the label.
1896 E. Snyder (& Son), maker of HAPPY HEINE, founded in Hampstead, Maryland.
1896 Sam, Max and Meyer Bayuk founded Bayuk Bros. cigar factory in a rented Philadelphia attic with a capital investment of $325. Their first brand, PRINCESS BONNIE is sought by the Musuem.
1896 Wm. Steiner & Sons, Lithographers, formed from Steiner & Rosenthal (started 1884).
1896 Gabe Cohn, founds first retail cigar store in what would become a chain of 13, mostly in the San Francisco Bay area. A popular and colorful sportsman, Cohn, who died in 1931, specialized in custom brands.
1896 The Cuban tobacco manufacturing Unions were combined into the Union de Fabricantes de Tabacos y Cigarros de la Isla de Cuba, a name shortened in 1933 to Union de Fabricantes de Tabacos y Cigarros de Cuba.
1896 World cigar consumption estimated at 40,000,000,000. Yes, 400 Billion (about 7 billion of that in the US).
1896 A Kretzschmar & Co., cigar box makers and specialists in half-tone (photographic) labels opens in Philadelphia.
1897 US Government allows boxes of 10 & 20 small cigars (cigarette sized weighing less than 3 pounds per 1,000) but not large cigars. Salesman’s sample size boxes of 12 cigars become popular with retailers and customers.
1897 Canadian Government issues new series of tax stamps, still color coded.
1897 Chas. M. Yetter & Co, makers of high grade union label cigars exclusively opens in Reading, PA. JOHN MITCHELL one of their brands.
1898 US Government redates 1883 tax stamp to “Series of 1898” changing the location of the date on the stamp.
1898 US Battleship Maine blows up and sinks in Havana harbor. Although much later discovered to be the result of a design flaw storing ammunition too close to the boilers, the war-hawks in Congress, urged on by William Randolph Hearst's yellow press, call for war. The US conducts a short-lived one-sided war driving Spain out of Cuba and the Philippines after 400 years of their control. The US takes over those two countries along with Puerto Rico and Guam. American money becomes the monetary standard. US architects and builders pour into Cuba as do the purveyors of ideas, the preachers and school teachers. American wagons, trucks and automobiles replaced the ox carts, wagons and carriages. Roads were finally built for the convenience of business. US invested $200,000,000 in Cuba during the following 6 years. England, France and Germany added another $75,000,000 while acquiring “their share” of the Cuban economy. Cuba was thoroughly Americanized. See History of Cuba exhibit.
1898 El Credito cigar and cigarette factory begins operation.
1898 American Tinplate Co. formed. Becomes part of American Can Co.
1898 Luis Toro founds Toro & Co., makers of EL TORO, which was 2/3 taken over by American Tobacco in 1900 and renamed Porto Rican-American Tobacco Co. Upon dissolution of the Trust in 1911, Toro headed the Company, one of the 16 split from the Trust. In 1927 Toro announced buying Congress Cigar Co, for $12,500,000 followed in 1929 by acquiring Waitt & Bond. He retired in 1931.
1899 Total US tobacco consumption averages to 5 pounds per person per year, making the United States the second heaviest tobacco user. Heaviest was the Netherlands at slightly more than 7 pounds each per year. If total Dutch consumption were averaged only among that country’s smokers, average would become a half pound per smoker per week. Children as young as six in the Netherlands are described as smoking “big black cigars.”
1899 Federal tax officials confiscated 250,000 cigars from the largest factory in San Francisco that employed Chinese labor. The factory was re-using boxes and applying counterfeit Cuban stamps.
1899 In a suit brought by a West Virginia cigar manufacturer against Joseph Engle of Boston, a U.S. circuit court judge ruled that “articles sold as Wheeling Stogies could not be manufactured in Boston or elsewhere than Wheeling, W.Va.” A business newspaper reporting the decision gave the opinion the ruling could be applied to the widespread use of Key West in cigar brand names and advertising.
1899 Peninsular Cigar Company, maker of EL PLANO cigars, opens in Tampa, Florida.
1899 Five Chicagoans, including a printer, salesman, and tenement house factory owner were arrested and jailed for producing and using counterfeit Union Stamps. Other warrants are outstanding.
1899 Children under 10 are banned from smoking in the Philippines, a land in which smoking is nearly universal. Philippine cigar tobacco is close to Cuban quality. Manilla cigars frequently cost more than their Cuban counterparts in world market.
1899 Durlach Brothers go into tobacco packing business in Caguas, Puerto Rico.
1900 Average cigar production per U.S. factory was 4,000 boxes a year. But there were 27,366 factories, the largest of which could produce 20,000 or more boxes of cigars a day.
1900 The highest concentration of cigar factories in the world was 2½ miles long and ¾ of a mile wide and called Manhattan. Manhattan produced more cigars than 45 of the states, including Florida. Manhattan produced 6 times as many cigars as Newark-Hoboken-Passaic. Economic shifts would make the two regions equal by 1920.
1900 Federal Industrial Commission estimates ethnic make-up of NYC cigarmakers to be 33% German, 30% Bohemian, 20% Russian Jews, 17% all others, with the number of Germans and Bohemians on the decline and number of Jews and Italians on the rise. Almost no native-born men or women are employed in the cigar industry.
1900 More than 60 distinct varieties of cigar tobacco are grown in the US. More than 50 other cigar tobaccos are imported from Cuba, Sumatra, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Add a few dozen types of flavoring... and more than 2,000 “standard” shapes and sizes for which moulds were available... The possibilities for what a man could smoke were almost endless. To that variety add the capability of maker, wholesaler, retailer and consumer to pack those cigars in a box depicting limitless number of images labeled with words selected from millions of possible word combinations. No brand-name product in history has been shipped in greater variety.
1900 Morgan Cigar Co. founded in Tampa, Florida. Makers of JUAN DE FUCA and others.
1900 Thomas E. Brooks joins with D.A. Horn, S.S. Sechrist and Fred Smith to form the Porto Rico Cigar Co., which lasts for 5 years.
1900 Experiments with CT shade leaf begin. Sumatra seed fails. But after a few years, Cuban shade seed succeeds. This results in Shade-Leaf, the third important cigar tobacco to be grown in Connecticut. See 1833 (broadleaf) and 1870 (seed leaf).
1900 Ohio cigar tobacco production around 45,000,000 pounds annually.
1900 Sumatran tobacco imported at the rate of 5,000,000 pounds a year and rising. Protectionist tariffs of $2/pound were applied but Sumatran remained the most popular and cost-effective wrapper.
1900 H. Duys & Co. opens in NYC as importer of Sumatra, Java, Havana and Connecticut tobacco.
1900 David Kleckner & Son, importers and manufacturers of gum tragacanth, open in Ozone Park, NY.
1900 The Merchants Cigar Box Co. organized in Dallastown by a number of York County, PA, cigarmakers seeking a local box maker to serve their needs.The company specializes in BN and SBN boxes, claiming ”If it’s wood, we make it.” Output is 25,000 boxes a day.
1900 James Buchanan Duke’s American Tobacco Company has absorbed more than 250 other companies and controls 90+% of US cigarettes, 80% of snuff, 62% of plug and 60% of smoking tobacco. He’s not done.
1900 British Government collects £11,000,000 sterling in tobacco taxes. England had 502 licensed cigar and tobacco makers. During the next decade 140 cigar makers closed shop.
1900 Tindeco (Tin Decorating Company) founded.
1900 José Bances retires, turning PARTAGAS over to Ramon Cifuentes Llano and Jose Fernandez, who together controlled RAMON ALLONES, LA INTIMIDAD and 20+ less important brands. Company called Cifuentes, Fernandez y Comp. in ads.
1900 Italian soldiers given two cigars a day as part of their rations.
1900 In Mexico, cigars are smoked by judges, lawyers, and juries during trials.
1900 “All France smokes.” A 1900 journalist wrote: “The cigarette is universal in France” because “French tobacco is too utterly vile for a pipe.” One-hundred years later, the French, especially women, continued to debase the quality of their food and wine for tourists by chain smoking in restaurants.
1901 US Government redates 1898 tax stamp to “Series of 1901” keeping date location the same.
1901 The "powerful, rapacious, monopolizing and unscrupulous" American Tobacco Trust invades England. Thirteen leading British manufacturers combined to form the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland and fight a bitter and expensive price war.
1901 President McKinley provided for the repeal of the tobacco export duties on Cuban leaf and manufactured tobacco.
1901 About 19,000 people are employed in the tobacco industry in Havana, fewer than the number in Manhattan. In May of 1901 there were 116 cigar, cigarette and tobacco factories in Cuba plus 51 “manufacturers on a small scale” which according to law could not export goods or employ more than 7 workers each.
1901 Connecticut produces 19,000,000 pounds of cigar tobacco, achieving 2½ times national output per acre.
1901 Six billion legal taxed cigars sold; Three and a half billion cigarettes.
1901 H. Fendrich of Evansville, Indiana, introduces CHARLES DENBY cigars.
1901 American Can Co., formed by mergers of smaller companies, began operation this year.
1901 Heekin Can Co., Cincinnati, founded.
1901 US Government acquires land in and around Guantanamo Bay by means of one-sided treaty. Part of the Platt Amendment calling for Guantanamo to be vacated only upon agreement of both the US and Cuba.
1902 US Government gives control of Cuba to its newly elected President Palma. Sort of. Palma took over a country in which nearly all banks, sugar plantations and mills, tobacco vegas, railroads, telephones, electricity, water, ports, utilities, factories, even some of the most famous names in cigars, La Corona itself, were in foreign hands.
1902 In the Treaty of Reciprocity between Cuba and the United signed this year, granted preferential duty in the American tariff on tobacco as well as on other products of the soil.
1902 British American Tobacco formed around the recently created Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland and the American Tobacco Company . The two combines were losing so much revenue thanks to a brutal year-long price war that they decided to merge American, Imperial and Ogden's as British-American Tobacco Company, which by 1910 controlled 75% of British production.
1902 Duluth Paper Box Co established, specialist in machine formed folding cardboard boxes, just in time for the 1910 boom in cardboard 5 packs.
1903 For those who believe Florida was the center of the cigar industry, here are some interesting figures for 1903 (rounded up to nearest 100k):
Manhattan shipped 589,600,000 cigars
Tampa shipped 94,800,000 cigars
Key West shipped 32,600,000 cigars
Puerto Rico shipped 29,900,000 cigars
1903 Jacobus Heesterbeek founds what ultimately becomes the HOFNAR cigar factory in Valkenswaard, the Netherlands. HOFNAR becomes a prolific user of interesting tin boxes.
1903 Bayuk Bros. expands operations into Lancaster County.
1903 Henry Clay & Co. Ltd. was created as an arm of the Tobacco Trust (American Tobacco Co.). The company controlled 291 brands of Cuban cigars and 85 brands of Cuban cigarettes.
1903 Royal Warrant Holder George Zafirides establishes offices on Liberty Street as dealer in and blender of American bright and Turkish tobaccos exclusively for the manufacture of cigarettes. Also deals in used cigarette-making machinery. “Supplier to Foreign Tobacco Monopolies.”
1903 G. Bruning Tobacco Extract Co., “manufacturers of a pure tobacco extract flavoring suitable for use in the manufacture of chewing tobacco and snuff” established in Lynchburg, Virginia.
1903 La Aurora cigar factory established by the Leon Jimenes family as the first cigar manufacturer in the Dominican Republic.
1904 US Government radically redesigns import stamps; now short, white, and dated 1904.
1904 Cuba exports 205,240,000 cigars, 45% to England, 22% to the US, 14% to Germany, 19% to the rest of the world. Note that Cuba’s entire export is a little more than one-third of Manhattan’s production.
1904 The firm of Heine, Perez & Ladrero formed in New York City to make clear Havana cigars.
1904 New York City has 25,449 people engaged in manufacturing cigars, cigarettes and to a much lesser extent smoking tobacco. That represents 16% of all people employed in the tobacco industry nationwide. New Jersey has 6,508 tobacco industry employees, almost all making cigars, or 4% of U.S. total.
1904 J.M. Martinez factory in Tampa burned down on April 4th, temporarily relocated April 5th, pledges brand new factory will open in July.
1904 I. Redstone begins manufacture of Turkish cigarettes and tobacco in London, England.
1905 US Government invades Cuba for a second time. President Teddy Roosevelt appoints Charles Magoon, former governor of the Canal Zone, to govern Cuba.
1905 US population has doubled since 1865. Cigar consumption has multiplied 7 times.
1905 Census data reports 5,274 children under age 16 working in cigar factories, up 60% from 1890.
1905 Tobacco Trust (operating under various names including American Tobacco Co., American Cigar Co., and its Cuban arm, Henry Clay & Co.) has acquired 291 major and minor Cuban brands including La Corona, Cabañas, Henry Clay, Bock y Ca., La Carolina, La Africana, La Vencedora, La Intimidad, Villar y Villar, La Meridiana, M.Garcia Alonso, Flor de Naves, El Aguila de Oro and J.S. Murias.
1905 PERFECTO GARCIA established in Tampa, Florida. Company advertises they make 65 different sizes and shapes of cigar.
1905 British American Tobacco Company, Limited, formed to stop cut-throat competition.
1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
1906 US Government passes the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Food and Drug Administration isestablished. In exchange for supporting the Act, tobacco lobbyists get tobacco dropped from the Pharmacopoeia, thus removing nicotine from regulation by the FDA.
1906 The largest 106 cigar factories averaged 23,376,859 a year and accounted for 1/3 of all cigars made in the US. Only 2% of all cigar factories were large enough to roll 2,000,000+ cigars a year (that's 50,000± boxes) but that 2% combined to account for 60% of all US cigar sales. The remaining 98% of factories (a whopping 25,283 of them) averaged only 113,865 cigars each and combined to make 40% of US cigars. It should be obvious why there were more than one million different cigar brands offered between 1890-1920.
1906 Thomas E. Brooks buys out H.L. Haines and F.J. Holtsinger, forming, for 8 years, the precursor of T.E. Brooks & Co.
1906 Emil Steffens lithographic company becomes Steffens, Jones & Co. from 1906-1920,
1906 Benson & Hedges comes to Canada, opening branch in Montreal.
1906 Phillips & King, distributors of cigars and accessories opens in City of Industry, Calif. Lasts 93 years.
1907 US Government sues the Tobacco Trust, which controls 90±% of cigarettes, smoking tobacco, snuff and chaw but only 14% of the fragmented more-difficult-to-take-over cigar industry.
1907 York County, PA, is home to 1,200 cigar factories which produce a 300,000,000 cigars per year, most of which sold for 2/5¢.
1908 Moehle Litho takes over Oscar Schwencke. Company closes in 1930.
1908 Canadian Government tax laws changed so that cigars are no longer taxed according to where the tobacco originated. Color coding ends, but stamps not redesigned or redated. Only black stamps now offered.
1908 US Government approves the election of General Jose Miguel Gomez as second President of Cuba and withdraws again. Sort of.
1908 Rudolph, Hach & Co. established in Clarksville, Tenn, as tobacco packers and inspectors.
1909 US Government revises tariff laws to allow Philippine cigars into US free of import duties. They pour in. This is why so many Philippine boxes are found with 1910-1931 issue stamps.
1909 A. Vander Weele Cigar Co. opened up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, closing in 1968.
1909 Factories in Boston make 134,000,000 cigars (roughly 2,500,000 boxes).
1910 US Government drops denominations from small white import stamps, now dated 1910.
1910 US Government totally redesigns cigar tax stamps, shortening them to 9± inches.
1910 US Government allows boxes of 5 and 10 regular cigars as well as 5 and 8 small cigars
1910 US Government allows Caution Notices to be printed directly on cigar boxes instead of pasted on. Specifies strict uniform dimensions and shape.
1910 WESTERN TOBACCONIST magazine founded.
1910 LA CORONA (owned by the American Tobacco Trust) was making 40,000 Havana cigars a day.
1910 Cigars and smoking tobacco confiscated by British tax agents were given to "Criminal Lunatic Asylums and to State Inebriate Reformatories."
1910 R.G. Sullivan, Manchester NH, claims to be the country’s largest maker of a 10¢ cigar brand (350 rollers making 7-20-4).
1910 George Weidman and Thomas Fisher found Weidman, Fisher & Co., box makers, in Tampa.
1910 Jose “Mucho” Suarez starts leaf merchant business in Havana.
1910 Bayuk Bros. introduce PHILADEPHIA HAND MADE, which the smoking public shortened to “Phillies,” which ultimately became one of history’s biggest selling cigars.
1910 American Sumatra Tobacco Co. founded.
1910 Peter Giata opens business on Water St. in NYC as dealer in leaf tobacco, specializing in Latakia. Offers services as a tobacco appraiser and dealer in used cigarette machinery. Still around in 1946.
1910 President Taft lights the cigarette of the Russian ambassador’s wife, reportedly the first cigarette smoked in the White House. News reports say “Within five minutes nearly every European woman in the room was smoking.”
Part III of the Cigar Time Line covers events from the start of the U.S. Civil War and the onset of Federal regulation to the end of the Golden Age just prior to World War One.
Government activities (usually laws) and particularly noteworthy companies are in bold as are brand names. If a box, label or company is on exhibit, it is marked in claret color. Entries in light blue have been added since the February 15th, 2008, upload. Entries in red are social or historic events with significant impact on the country.
This timeline is under construction. I add dates as I find them. Since the information was gathered over a period of 50 years from more than 1,000 sources, errors, contradictions or differences of opinion are inevitable. Feel free to write <Tony@CigarHistory.info>.
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