Solla-Carcaba Building: Remembering the Cigar Industry
by Kelly Enright, PhD, Flagler College Public History Program
In 1868, Cuba began its long fight for independence from Spain with a conflict known as the Ten Years War. This fight spurred Cuban immigration into the United States for those seeking refuge from the violence. Many relocated to major metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, but many others came to Florida. Cigar manufacturers in particular relocated to Key West and Tampa, while a few brought their businesses to St. Augustine.
Hand-rolled cigars were available in St. Augustine before this influx, but the industry exploded at the end of the nineteenth century. U.S. factories more than tripled in number. In the 1890s, tensions between Spanish cigar company owners and Cuban workers led to the relocation of factories—many from Key West moved to Tampa at this time making it the capital of the U.S. industry. P.F. Carcaba moved his business to St. Augustine in 1893. Originally from Oveido, Spain, Carcaba learned the cigar trade in Havana before working in the industry in Brooklyn and opening his own factory in Cincinnati. Carcaba began producing pure Havana tobacco “Caballeros” and housing his products in boxes illustrated with Henry Flagler’s luxurious local hotels. The community supported the industry. When his factory burned in 1895, the Catholic bishop gave him a vacant school building to continue his work.
In the early twentieth century, the town factories produced 5 million cigars a year. In 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt visited St. Augustine, Carcaba presented him with three elaborately decorated boxes of his finest cigars. When Carcaba died in 1906, his partners (Garcia and Vega) moved the business to Tampa. Although other factories remained (Bartolo, Genovar, Pomar), the city felt the loss of this important business. In 1908, the Board of Trade signed an agreement with Carcaba’s heirs to lure them back to the East Coast. The plan was to build a state-of-the-art factory with public funds that, after five years and eight million cigars, would be deeded to the the Martinez, Solla and Carcaba Cigar Company.
On March 18, 1909, the company moved into the new factory at 88 Riberia Street. The side of the building was painted with the name of the company, “Solla-Carcaba Co.” (Martinez had left the firm), and the words “Captain Bravo”—one of its signature products. The business employed more than 40 workers that year and continued with some success, but did not reach the agreed-upon eight million in five-year quota to earn the building. On March 20, 1914, the bankrupt company closed shop. They tried to return a few years later, in 1917, but this venture failed and they auctioned off their equipment to Pamies-Arango and Company.
In 1918, Pamies-Arango employed fifty workers and produced 8,000 cigars a day. Their brands were sold throughout the U.S. Threatening to strike in 1919, workers forced a 15% raise. In 1920, cigar manufacturing was St. Augustine’s second largest industry (next to Florida East Coast Railway). In 1921, after producing seven million cigars, the Board of Trade gave title of the Solla-Carcaba building to Pamies-Arango and Company. They quickly issued stock and mortgaged the building to fund expansion.
The rest of the 1920s and 30s saw the decline of the industry. Cigarettes grew in popularity, the Florida Land Boom collapsed, the stock market crashed, and St. Augustine could not compete with Tampa’s access to several rail lines and a port. Pamies-Arango foreclosed on their mortgage ending the cigar business in the building that still stands as a monument to the end this once-profitable business in St. Augustine. The Solla-Carcaba building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources:
“Solla-Carcaba Cigar Factory,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, March 29, 1993.
Steve Rajtar and Kelly Goodman, A Guide to Historic St. Augustine, Florida. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2007.
David Nolan, The Houses of St. Augustine. Sarasota, FL: The Pineapple Press, 1995.
