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| Cigars in Key West Florida |
By
Marie Wakefield |
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Since the nineteenth century, Key West has comprised one on the historic hubs of cigar tradition. Erstwhile boasting more cigar factories per capita than anywhere else on the globe, Key West had always had a major part in the cigar industry. Shortly after the U.S. Civil War , this town turned into a Mecca for Cuban citizens taking flight from their nation's revolution against Spain. By the late 1870's there were over 100 factories making cigars.
Cuban influence in Key West commenced on a massive scale in 1868 when the first war against Spanish authority created a mass exodus. When Cubans confronted forced conscription into the Spanish army to battle against their countrymen, thousands of skilled cigar craftsmen and their families fled their native land.
On a single September day in 1869, over 2,000 Cubans lined the wharves of the Havana to escape their motherland. While some left for New York City or New Orleans, the majority got on steamships for the 12-hour trip to a destination ninety miles northward, a place Cubans called Cayo Hueso, today's Key West.
The civil war against Spain died by 1878, nonetheless it created social turbulence in Key West as Cuban emigrants kept on arriving intermittently for decades, literally revolutionizing Key West's social fabric and economy.
Prior to 1868, Key West had fewer than 500 occupants, notable chiefly for taking riches from shipwrecks, but a fresh form of riches was about to come when Cuban immigrants, with talented cigar making skills, descended in the thousands in the matter of a year or two.
At the apex of the industry, Key West constituted the biggest cigar-producing town in the nation. It bragged of fifty-seven major manufacturers of cigars--many of whom resettled from Havana--and each hired between five and five hundred workers. In 1883 exclusively, 42 million hand-rolled cigars were made.
To house their cigar laborers, factory owners frequently constructed little cottages--bungalow-style structures principally of frame construction--and rented them out for low sums. To assure an ample supply of laborers, these homes were adjacent to manufacturing plants. These structures still comprise the biggest category of frame vernacular (simple structures, made of wood with few or no ornamental details) in Key West proper.
They were built from termite-proof Dade County pine with high ceilings for ventilation. They were elevated off the ground, allowing air to flow under the houses where roosters and hens lived and were part of the family, raised for eggs or meat or were trained for cock fights.
Although little by today's criteria, these cottages were far better than living circumstances in Havana they were surely far superior to condemnable tenement houses in Northern cities. Many times a cigar artisan would change jobs to another factory simply to have a newer house to live in. These homes were offered for inexpensive rent or with the option to purchase at a reasonable price to maintain a stable work force.
With nice homes, good salaries and the freedom to back up the revolution, the cigar craftsmen lived well. Their savvy unions assured substantial metier, and while most union workers in the North were huddled in execrable tenement lodging, Key West cigar workers were enjoying nirvana. Even their many strikes, which at length helped snowball the decay of the cigar industry, mirrored the luxury of their state of affairs. In the strike of 1918, work ceased, as usual, until the union needs were met. The requests: no sweeping before 6 a.m., ice in the drinking water, and coal, not wood, fuel for winter heating.
The little cigar bungalows have endured the test of time. Many of these Key West structures are diminutive, only 300 or 400 square feet. They frequently have porches, minuscule yards with picket fences and little or no grass to mow. The bungalows were made from Dade County pine by ship's carpenters, who constructed with a tongue-and-groove technique which lasts.
Property values are high, crime is low and the climate is about perfect. The bungalows are adequate for one or two friendly persons to live in--when you can be outside 350 days of the year. Key West has become such a desirable paradise for artists, the affluent and retirees that these pastoral cottages now cost at least $125,000--if you can get hold of one.
For the best cigars, more tips and information on cigars including best cigars for Beginners visit http://cigars.gogoodpages.com/
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