Since the 19th century, Key West has constituted one on the historic centers of cigar tradition. Formerly featuring more cigar factories for each person than anyplace else in the world, Key West had always played a major role in the cigar industry. Just after the War between the States, this city became a Mecca for Cuban citizens fleeing their nation's long running revolution against Spain. By the late 1870's there were over 100 factories constructing cigars.
Cuban influence in Key West first commenced on a monumental 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 Cuban capital to flee their mother country. While some left for New York City or New Orleans, the bulk boarded steamers for the 12-hour trip to a destination ninety miles to the north, a city Cubans called Cayo Hueso, today’s Key West.
The civil war against Spain failed by 1878, all the same it created a social Sturm und Drang in Key West as Cuban emigrants kept on arriving intermittently for decades, literally revolutionizing Key West’s social framework and economy.
Prior to 1868, Key West had fewer than 500 residents, notable chiefly for acquiring riches from shipwrecks, but a fresh form of riches was about to arrive when Cuban émigrés, with gifted cigar making skills, came by the thousands in the matter of a twelvemonth or two.
At the peak of the industry, Key West embodied the largest cigar-producing city in the nation. It featured 57 major makers of cigars--many of whom relocated from Havana--and each made use of between five and 500 workers. In 1883 alone, 42 million hand-rolled cigars were created.
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 small by today's standards, these bungalows were far superior to living conditions in Havana,certainly far superior to deplorable tenements in Northern cities. Oft times a cigar artisan would change jobs to different factory just to have a newer house to dwell in. These homes were provided for inexpensive rent or with the choice to buy at a reasonable price to keep a stable workforce.
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 cigarworkers 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 cigar houses have held up to the test of time. Many of these Key West structures are lilliputian, only three hundred or four hundred square feet. They oftentimes have porches, small yards with picket fences and minuscule amounts of grass to mow. The homes were made from Dade County pine by ship's carpenters, who built with a tongue-and-groove technique which holds up.
Property values are high, crime is low and the climate is all but perfect. The houses are plenty big enough for one or two friendly people to dwell in--when you can be out of doors 350 days of the year. Key West has transformed into such a sought after paradise for artists, the wealthy and retirees that these rustic homes now cost at least $125,000--if you can discover one.
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