Ever heard of "Tobacco Road"


College basketball fans know it as the heart of the Atlantic Coast Conference, with Duke (Durham), North Carolina (Chapel Hill), North Carolina State (Raleigh) and Wake Forest (Winston-Salem) competing against each other with all four schools within six miles of Interstate 40. But deep and rich within the cigar culture, historians recognize "Tobacco Road" as belonging to the heritage of our community, specifically Greensboro, North Carolina. 


Greensboro has been cited as the largest cigar-producing city between Baltimore and Tampa in the 1920s and 1930s. According to the Greensboro Historical Museum, Greensboro's cigar history began about 1890 when two wholesale grocers in Baltimore passed on cigars to Greensboro store owners to entice them to place orders. Hotel operator W.F. Clegg opened a small cigar plant to service his customers and made a popular brand named for the Revolutionary War hero for whom Greensboro is named - General Nathanael Greene and thus the begining of "Tobacco Road".


By 1915 , Seidenberg & Co. was operating a five-story factory with 260 workers – almost all women. The biggest factory was the El-Rees-So, started by a former Southern Pacific Railroad worker named John Rees around 1915.  By 1917, he had 300 employees and boasted that “all the cigars are made by girls . . . pretty girls.” A 1922 edition of the Greensboro Daily News noted that the city’s factories turned out about 300,000 cigars combined each day, or about 30 million per year, an impressive total for the time. But by 1955, the cigar boom in Greensboro had fallen to hard times.  The El Moro company was the last of the cigarmakers to close, finally selling in 1955 to T.E. Brooks Co. of Red Lion, Pennsylvania.  The El Moro factory site in Greensboro is, today, a parking lot.

A well known historical with the cigar culture is up and down, boom cycles which promote exciting change. The most recent, "The Boom of the 90s", which began, among other things, the recognition of the Women who Smoke Cigars. It was then, that we first received acknowledgment that we existed in this community. The 90s was then, and this is now.

The Old meets New - thank yu Web 2.0


Here we are, and some would agree, in the midst of another boom "The Boom of Web 2.0".  Never in cigar culture history has so many enthusiasts had the opportunity to virtually meet to discuss, compare, review and share their love of the leaf. And from all over the nation, internationally, men or women, our commaraderie knows no boundaries.

Our culture has taken on another face. Together with an innovative approach, a more youthful group of connoisseurs has joined this deep culture.  Along with the Urban flair and swing of The Stogie Baby, and his entertaining audio review show, Stuart Carnes of My Cigar Affair caters to the youthful cigar lifestyle enthusiast. And then of course, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, there are Women, and lots of us.  We're not simply the Girls of the Show, a novelty act meant to draw the attention of the male cigar lover, as part of an over-done marketing ploy, which dates back to the 1890 wholesale grocers, supra., but we are, true aficionada, enthusionada, and sisters of the leaf.

We are indeed witnessing a significant change in this culture. Its an exciting time, and it is "The Boom of Web 2.0". 

its Monday here's my Tip from Tinderbox!




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Hyde Park Collection includes (2) cigars of each:

Macanudois now crafted exclusively in the Dominican Republic, and every Macanudo Café cigar is made with the finest Connecticut Shade wrapper,a flavorful blend of Dominican tobaccos and a select binder grown in the rich St. Andrés Tuxtla Valley of Mexico.

The Macanudo Robust flavor comes from the richest Dominican Piloto Cubano tobacco and a unique Havana seed binder grown in Connecticut especially for these cigars. To achieve a more flavorful cigar, Cigar Master, Daniel Nuñez combines the sweetness of a Connecticut Broadleaf binder with afuller-flavored blend of Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan tobaccos.


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Have a great week, Damsel...