Location: Elm Street at Smothers Place in Greensboro
County: Guilford
Original Date Cast: 2013
“All the cigars are made by girls . . . pretty girls,” boasted the El-Rees-So Cigar Company, one of fourteen cigar manufacturers that once operated in lofts and buildings in what is now the central business district of Greensboro. John Rees started the business in 1915, in time employing 300 people. In 1926 he founded the El Moro Cigar Company at South Elm and Lee Streets. He was not alone. Seidenburg and Company commenced operations in 1903 in a five-story building at West Friendly (then Gaston) and Greene Streets. Brands promoted included the “General Greene,” named for Revolutionary war hero Nathanael Greene. Greensboro was second in the South only to Tampa in terms of production.
The association of Greensboro businessmen with the cigar industry predated the factories. In the 1890s Moses and Ceasar Cone handed out cigars, made in Baltimore, to promote their textile mills. The Greensboro factories did not use North Carolina tobacco but imported the leaves from the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.
The businesses quickly thrived to the point that 15 million cigars were made locally in 1911 when over 295,000 pounds of tobacco were processed and shipped out in 310,000 cigar boxes. The sweet smell of tobacco pervaded the downtown area. Success created the need for a separate box manufacturer (their products today are prized by collectors). African Americans were employed for a few of the more physical tasks but the bulk of the work was carried out by young white women.
The last Greensboro manufacturer, El Moro, closed up shop in 1955. Changes in the industry, mainly mechanization, had led to the use of heavy machinery not appropriate for the Greensboro buildings. The market also had changed. Free distribution of cigarettes to soldiers in World War II led to a steep decline in the market for cigars. The El-Rees-So brand survives but is now made in Baltimore.
References:
Jim Schlosser, “Sweet Smell of Cigar Success Once Wafted Through City,” Greensboro News and Record, May 5, 2008
Greensboro Telegram, March 23, 1911
Greensboro city directory, 1918-1919
Gayle Fripp, Greensboro: A Chosen Center (1980)
Alexander R. Stoesen, Guilford County (1993)