Today, officials from the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County gathered at J.C. Newman’s iconic El Reloj cigar factory to unveil and dedicate a new historical marker. The marker recognizes the importance of El Reloj to Tampa’s cigar heritage and J.C. Newman’s 127-year legacy of handcrafting premium cigars. Below is the text on the marker.
“El Reloj is a living history museum,” said Drew Newman, fourth-generation owner of J.C. Newman. “Each day, we proudly handcraft 50,000 cigars the same way that my great-grandfather did 100 years ago. Cigars are an important part of the cultural fabric of Tampa. As the last-operating cigar factory in the ‘Cigar City,” we work very hard to keep Tampa’s historic cigar-making tradition alive.”
“Beginning in the 1970s, cigar factories across America began to close as companies moved production overseas where labor is cheaper,” added Newman. “Two weeks ago, another cigar factory closed in Pennsylvania, meaning that El Reloj is not only the last cigar factory in Tampa but is now also the last traditional cigar factory still operating in the United States.”
“My family and I greatly appreciate that the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County has recognized the significance of El Reloj and J.C. Newman to Tampa’s cigar heritage by placing this marker in front of our factory.”
At its peak in the early 1900s, Tampa had 150 cigar factories that rolled 500 million cigars by hand each year. Tampa was known as the “Fine Cigar Capital of the World.” El Reloj is one of Tampa’s most famous cigar factories.
When it opened in 1910, El Reloj was reported to be the largest cigar factory in the world. It was designed for 1,000 cigar makers who could hand roll more than 250,000 cigars daily. Newspapers wrote that El Reloj “embodied every convenience [and] luxury known to modern commercial construction” and “represented the highest type of factory building.”
El Reloj is exemplary of the Tampa cigar factory, which was a brick building oriented from east to west with three stories, a basement, and a tower.
Many Tampa cigar factories had nicknames. Because of its iconic clock tower, this factory is known as “El Reloj” or “clock” in Spanish. As few people owned clocks or watches a century ago, Ybor City residents used the bell from El Reloj’s tower to tell time. El Reloj was built by E. Regensburg & Sons, which operated the factory until 1951. Julius C. Newman bought El Reloj in 1954 when he moved his cigar company from Cleveland to Tampa. Today, El Reloj is the last working cigar factory in Tampa.
Born in Austria-Hungary in 1875, Julius C. (J.C.) Newman and his family came to the United States in 1888 in search of the American Dream. After they settled in Cleveland, Ohio, J.C.’s mother paid a small cigar factory $3 per month to teach her son the art of hand rolling cigars.
Although J.C. became a superb cigar roller, he was laid off in a severe recession. Eager to help, J.C.’s mother persuaded the neighborhood grocery store to give her son an order for 500 cigars. J.C. made a cigar table from some old wood boards, borrowed $50 to buy tobacco, and converted the family barn into a one-man cigar factory. On May 5, 1895, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. was born.
By 1910, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. was the largest cigar factory in Cleveland. In 1927, the company merged to become Mendelsohn & Newman Cigar Manufacturers, Inc. In 1953, J.C. sent his elder son, Stanford, to Tampa to investigate rolling cigars in “Cigar City.” By the next year, J.C. bought the El Reloj cigar factory and relocated his family business to Tampa.
In 1997, Stanford changed the company’s name back to J.C. Newman Cigar Co. In celebration of its 125th anniversary in 2020, J.C. Newman restored El Reloj, the last working cigar factory in Tampa.
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