Studebaker
Evolving Lead Gorilla
This column appeared in the May 5, 2008 Greensboro (NC) News & Record print and online editions. It's a fun read if a little long, penned by a local legendary writer named Jim Schlosser, and I wanted to share it with the jungle. There is one sentence that screams that the writer is not schooled in fine cigars though. I'll leave it to you to spot it...
Sweet smell of cigar success once wafted through city
GREENSBORO — The city's winding down bicentennial celebration calls for firing up a cigar, a good old Greensboro-made stogie.
Ideally, the cigar of choice would be a General Greene, named for the Revolutionary War general for whom the city is named. The Greene cigar was made here early in the 20th century by hotel owner W.F. Clegg, who had a cigar plant on South Elm Street near his hotel, which hugged the Southern Railway train depot where 50 passenger trains stopped daily.
The Greensboro Historical Museum's "Welcome to the Gate City" exhibit includes displays of a General Greene cigar box in the counter of the reproduced Clegg Hotel lobby. Jon Zachman, a curator, says the box contains no Gen. Greenes.
However, two other display boxes include real examples of one of the city's best known and widely sold brands, El-Rees-So. John Rees, a former Southern Railroad employee, started making El-Rees-So about 1915. His plant was on the second floor over a first-floor cigar shop he and his wife owned at Elm and Sycamore (now February One Place).
In 1926, Rees joined with other investors to form the El Moro Cigar Co., which made El Moros and El Rees at a plant at South Elm and Lee streets. When the tornado of 1936 snuffed out the plant, El Moro built a bigger plant at the northeast corner of Greene and McGee streets.
Greensboro was the state's — indeed the region's — cigar capital.
There were as many as seven cigar factories operating at one time, but old city directories from about 1918 to the late 1930s indicate as many as 14 manufacturers cranked out cigars during that period. One company on Spring Street made boxes for cigars.
A 1922 story in the Greensboro Daily News said: "Every time the clock runs around 24 hours in Greensboro the factories in the city can point to nearly 300,000 new cigars." That amounted to 30 million cigars annually.
The El-Rees-So business grew rapidly. It employed 300 people by 1917, big for a city of 10,000 to 15,000. The company boasted in a pamphlet that "all the cigars are made by girls ... pretty girls."
Another manufacturer, Seidenberg & Co, operated a five-story factory at Gaston (now West Friendly Avenue) and Greene streets. A 1911 promotional article said the Greensboro plant employed 260 people, nearly all women, who were paid $35 to $40 a week. They produced such brands as "The Little Tam," "The Little Zoz," "The Little Tiberius," "The Class" and "The Lady Churchill."
Historian Gayle Fripp, in her book, "Greensboro: A Chosen Center, an Illustrated History," published in 1980, wrote that Greensboro's cigar factories could "turn out more cigars than those in any city between Baltimore and Tampa."
Naturally, Greensboro gentlemen (women were not suppose to smoke cigars) puffed this economic booster for the city. "Smoke shops'' stood throughout the downtown, filled with cigars in boxes that manufacturers took pride in elaborately decorating. These stores became places for people to linger.
The Tuxedo Cigar Store, 104 S. Elm St., advertised that within its walls "businessmen, policemen, office holders, lawyers and the 'intellectual classes' gathered to buy cigars and latest periodicals and 'get a line on who's who in Greensboro.' "
Oddly, the first cigars associated with Greensboro came from a family whose name today is equated with textiles, the Cones. In 1890, brothers Moses and Ceasar Cone, and their father, Herman, owned a large wholesale grocery business in Baltimore. As the brothers traveled the South, they handed out to grocery store owners fine boxes of Cone Cigars. The smokes probably were made in Baltimore. The museum has a box of Cone cigars on display.
Residents knew Greensboro was a cigar town not just from the sweet aroma that saturated downtown. Farmers in horse-drawn wagons piled high with harvested leaf crowded downtown streets. W.F. Clegg provided livery services for the horses and allowed the farmers to sleep on his factory floor.
The cigar industry arose fast and burned out almost as quickly. By the mid-1950s, the public regarded cigars as outdated.
They had lost out to cigarettes, which had become hot or cool, depending on your choice of words. Perhaps World War II won the day for cigarettes. Manufacturers gave away millions of cigarettes to military people and continued to do so for years afterward.
In 1955, Greensboro's last cigar company, El Moro, closed, after being purchased by the T.E. Brooks Co., of Red Lion, Pa.
The company continued to make El-Rees-So and El Moro brands, but not here. The Greensboro plant was deemed too outdated. It was demolished in 1956. The site at the corner of McGee and South Greene streets is now a parking lot.
Greensboro hardly noticed the loss of cigar making. In 1955, the city became a cigarette town, and remains so. P. Lorillard Tobacco Co. (now just Lorillard), makers of Kent. Old Golds, Newports and other brands, opened an enormous plant on the city's east side. Additions have made the plant even larger.
In 1997 Lorillard relocated its corporate headquarters from New York to Greensboro.
You can still buy a good cigar in Greensboro, at any convenience store. But they will be made in faraway places. If you try hard enough you might be able to order an El-Rees-So, or at least a cigar that looks like one.
Brooks Co. was eventually bought by G.W. Van Slyke and Horton Co. of Red Lion in 1979.
Van Slyke and Horton in essence bought Brooks' many cigar labels. The company then made a generic cigar and attached the El-Rees-So label or any other brand once owned by Brooks, to the them.
Pat Burke, a representative of Van Slyke and Horton, said the company still makes cigars and she can remember shipping cigars with the El-Rees-So label, but not the El Moro.
The same stogie goes into a box no matter what the brand.
Greensboro remembers El Moro, though. Wouldn't it be delightful if a big batch were available to hand out in all those fancy restaurants on South Elm Street? They stand in what used to be the smell zone for the El Moro factory.
Sweet smell of cigar success once wafted through city
GREENSBORO — The city's winding down bicentennial celebration calls for firing up a cigar, a good old Greensboro-made stogie.
Ideally, the cigar of choice would be a General Greene, named for the Revolutionary War general for whom the city is named. The Greene cigar was made here early in the 20th century by hotel owner W.F. Clegg, who had a cigar plant on South Elm Street near his hotel, which hugged the Southern Railway train depot where 50 passenger trains stopped daily.
The Greensboro Historical Museum's "Welcome to the Gate City" exhibit includes displays of a General Greene cigar box in the counter of the reproduced Clegg Hotel lobby. Jon Zachman, a curator, says the box contains no Gen. Greenes.
However, two other display boxes include real examples of one of the city's best known and widely sold brands, El-Rees-So. John Rees, a former Southern Railroad employee, started making El-Rees-So about 1915. His plant was on the second floor over a first-floor cigar shop he and his wife owned at Elm and Sycamore (now February One Place).
In 1926, Rees joined with other investors to form the El Moro Cigar Co., which made El Moros and El Rees at a plant at South Elm and Lee streets. When the tornado of 1936 snuffed out the plant, El Moro built a bigger plant at the northeast corner of Greene and McGee streets.
Greensboro was the state's — indeed the region's — cigar capital.
There were as many as seven cigar factories operating at one time, but old city directories from about 1918 to the late 1930s indicate as many as 14 manufacturers cranked out cigars during that period. One company on Spring Street made boxes for cigars.
A 1922 story in the Greensboro Daily News said: "Every time the clock runs around 24 hours in Greensboro the factories in the city can point to nearly 300,000 new cigars." That amounted to 30 million cigars annually.
The El-Rees-So business grew rapidly. It employed 300 people by 1917, big for a city of 10,000 to 15,000. The company boasted in a pamphlet that "all the cigars are made by girls ... pretty girls."
Another manufacturer, Seidenberg & Co, operated a five-story factory at Gaston (now West Friendly Avenue) and Greene streets. A 1911 promotional article said the Greensboro plant employed 260 people, nearly all women, who were paid $35 to $40 a week. They produced such brands as "The Little Tam," "The Little Zoz," "The Little Tiberius," "The Class" and "The Lady Churchill."
Historian Gayle Fripp, in her book, "Greensboro: A Chosen Center, an Illustrated History," published in 1980, wrote that Greensboro's cigar factories could "turn out more cigars than those in any city between Baltimore and Tampa."
Naturally, Greensboro gentlemen (women were not suppose to smoke cigars) puffed this economic booster for the city. "Smoke shops'' stood throughout the downtown, filled with cigars in boxes that manufacturers took pride in elaborately decorating. These stores became places for people to linger.
The Tuxedo Cigar Store, 104 S. Elm St., advertised that within its walls "businessmen, policemen, office holders, lawyers and the 'intellectual classes' gathered to buy cigars and latest periodicals and 'get a line on who's who in Greensboro.' "
Oddly, the first cigars associated with Greensboro came from a family whose name today is equated with textiles, the Cones. In 1890, brothers Moses and Ceasar Cone, and their father, Herman, owned a large wholesale grocery business in Baltimore. As the brothers traveled the South, they handed out to grocery store owners fine boxes of Cone Cigars. The smokes probably were made in Baltimore. The museum has a box of Cone cigars on display.
Residents knew Greensboro was a cigar town not just from the sweet aroma that saturated downtown. Farmers in horse-drawn wagons piled high with harvested leaf crowded downtown streets. W.F. Clegg provided livery services for the horses and allowed the farmers to sleep on his factory floor.
The cigar industry arose fast and burned out almost as quickly. By the mid-1950s, the public regarded cigars as outdated.
They had lost out to cigarettes, which had become hot or cool, depending on your choice of words. Perhaps World War II won the day for cigarettes. Manufacturers gave away millions of cigarettes to military people and continued to do so for years afterward.
In 1955, Greensboro's last cigar company, El Moro, closed, after being purchased by the T.E. Brooks Co., of Red Lion, Pa.
The company continued to make El-Rees-So and El Moro brands, but not here. The Greensboro plant was deemed too outdated. It was demolished in 1956. The site at the corner of McGee and South Greene streets is now a parking lot.
Greensboro hardly noticed the loss of cigar making. In 1955, the city became a cigarette town, and remains so. P. Lorillard Tobacco Co. (now just Lorillard), makers of Kent. Old Golds, Newports and other brands, opened an enormous plant on the city's east side. Additions have made the plant even larger.
In 1997 Lorillard relocated its corporate headquarters from New York to Greensboro.
You can still buy a good cigar in Greensboro, at any convenience store. But they will be made in faraway places. If you try hard enough you might be able to order an El-Rees-So, or at least a cigar that looks like one.
Brooks Co. was eventually bought by G.W. Van Slyke and Horton Co. of Red Lion in 1979.
Van Slyke and Horton in essence bought Brooks' many cigar labels. The company then made a generic cigar and attached the El-Rees-So label or any other brand once owned by Brooks, to the them.
Pat Burke, a representative of Van Slyke and Horton, said the company still makes cigars and she can remember shipping cigars with the El-Rees-So label, but not the El Moro.
The same stogie goes into a box no matter what the brand.
Greensboro remembers El Moro, though. Wouldn't it be delightful if a big batch were available to hand out in all those fancy restaurants on South Elm Street? They stand in what used to be the smell zone for the El Moro factory.
