Just some general thoughts on the history of "organized tobacco" on Florida... Tampa was *the* center for rolling of cigars because of the "cheap" hispanic labor available in the area at the time (recent imigrants have always been suppliers of cheap labor in the U.S., no matter where they were from)... and (if I understand correctly) because there were already tobacco rolling skills available in that population (especially Cubans) that they brought with them to the U.S. But there was also a kind of solidarity amongst the exploited and it boiled over into labor strikes, unionization efforts and so forth at times. One of those times that I'm specifically aware of was in the immediate post World War I period (about 1920). But I believe that there were earlier episodes back perhaps as far as the 1880s. On the other hand, while tobacco was grown all over the South including much of North Florida, the specific type of tobacco that was required to wrap fine cigars was grown primarily, or perhaps exclusively, in Gadsden County Florida. This was not just the only place it was grown in Florida... it was the only place it was grown in the U.S. Known as "shade tobacco" it was grown under some kind of partial barrier to light. In my lifetime, before the business folded entirely, I guess due to cheaper foreign competition, the "shade" was a type of plastic screen. I don't know for a fact, but I suspect that the earlier versions were probably small wooden slats nailed so that only partial sunlight came through. I wasn't around Gadsden County before about 1970, so I cannot say that as a matter of fact, at all. I am basing it on the shades that my father built for growing nursery stock in South Florida in the 1950s. He used slats comprised of wooden lath (used to hold together plaster walls in houses before metal lath and gypsum "sheetrock" was invented. He got the lath from Victorian houses that were torn down in Fort Myers during thec 1950s. But then he also used rolls of metal wire similar to that used to fence in hogs, with steel wool wrapped all over it, pained olive drab with black splotches. It was surplus CAMOFLAGE material used to hide U.S. artillery, trucks, and such from enemy observation in WW II or Korea. The only problem with this was that the steel wool rusted away really fast. The wooden lath was good solid wood and lasted much longer. Anyhow, there was one attempt that I know of to bring cigar manufacturing to North Florida. A man whose name I cannot remember now built a fine brick building a block and a half from the railroad depot here in Tallahassee. Tallahassee is only about 15 miles from the county seat of Gadsden County, Quincy, and it is a lot closer than that to the county line... probably 10 miles or less at many points. That building still stands. For many years in my lifetime it housed a local lighting fixture sales company, McGowan Lighting. It was recently converted to a dance hall known as the Cow Haus, as it originated under that name at another location... out in the country on an old farm. I cannot remember the man's name now... but it could be looked up in the files of the old Tallahassee Historic Preservation Board. I also distinctly remember that there was a brand of cigars that had the name "...... y Garcia". I cannot remember the other name that went before the "y", which if my rudimentary Spanish does not fail me... "y" means "and". It may be that company that you are looking for. On the other hand, I am really only familiar with two brands of cigars that I can recall... one was "Hav-a-Tampa" and the other was "Home Made". My grandfather (my mother's father) smoked "Home Made" and I still have boxes sitting around my house 30 years after he died. I just checked one of those and "Home Made" was manufactured by Hamilton Harris. My father smoked Hav-a-Tampas, but he quit smoking anything when I was about 10 years old... long before grandpa died. I have a grave suspicion that I remember ".... y Garcia" from inside the lid of Hav-a-Tampa Cigars, and I believe that I still have one of those boxes around somewhere, too... but I can't seem to lay my hands on it right now. Maybe someone else can fill in...? RW