Aging Gracefully: The Cigar Industry in Tampa from 1953 to 2010

J.C. Newman Cigar Co. operates the historic El Reloj cigar factory building as the last cigar manufacturer in Tampa. Villazon & Co., Corral-Wodiska, Perfecto-Garcia, Cuesta-Rey, Antonio, Santaella, and other cigar companies were household names for many Tampa families prior to the 1980s. As of 2024, however, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. is the last of over 42,000 American premium cigar factories. Join company historian Holden Rasmussen in J.C. Newman’s The American cigar rolling room as he charts the changes to America’s cigar industry since 1953, and the ways those changes affected Tampa. Historic cigar boxes, archival materials, and cigar factory photographs will be on display before the presentation.