Mark A. Thompson established Thompson & Co., Inc. in 1915 as a manufacturer and distributor of fine cigars. In 1920 after hurricanes decimated most cigar factories in Key West including his, Thompson moves his factory to Ybor City, according to this 1931 Sanborn Insurance Fire Map, at the southeast corner of 21st Street and. & 14th Ave.

intrigued with the cigar industry, he organized Thompson & Co. a mail-order cigar business. Three years later Thompson relocated to Tampa, where he grew the business into a successful enterprise. He relocated the operation several times until 1923, when the company constructed a two-story building at 200 Edison Avenue.

Thompson Cigar was founded in Key West, Florida, in 1915 and is the oldest mail order cigar company in the country.

1926 - M.A. Thompson relocates his headquarters to N. Edison Avenue, near downtown Tampa.

1929- Thompson acquired Postal Permit #1 in the city of Tampa, which it still holds today.

1934 - M.A. Thompson moves his factory to Bartow, Florida where it will remain until 1960.

1960 - Thompson Cigar Company is sold to Robert Franzblau who opts not to purchase the Bartow factory. Franzblau switches cigar production to local Tampa factories like M & N Cigars and Gradiaz-Annis, which will make cigars under the Thompson brand. Both Stanford Newman and Morton Annis will serve as Franzblau's mentors for many years. Newman bought Cuesta Rey and Annis owned Gold Label and Macanudo, which he eventually sold to General Cigar Company.

1982 - Owner Robert Franzblau moves Thompson to its present-day headquarters at 5401 Hangar Court, which includes offices, a call center, a large humidor and a counter in the lobby, which sells cigars.

2018- In 2018, Thompson Cigars was purchased by the Scandinavian Tobacco Group for $62 million. It remained in business at the Tampa location until mid-2019 when STG began laying off employees. After 104 years of Florida based business, Tampa operations ceased permanently in December of 2019. STG also owns premium cigar maker General Cigar Co. and the massive online and catalog retailer Cigars International. STG plans on integrating Thompson’s operations into its Cigars International facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

In the 1920s, much of the state of Florida, as well as Polk County's seat, Bartow, experienced a construction boom. Construction activity neared its zenith in 1925, when building permits amounted to nearly $3,000 daily. Spurred by a surging economy, the local chamber of commerce promoted civic improvements, and sponsored fund drives for beautification of school grounds, and to develop a factory, golf course, and hospital. Buoyed by community's developmental success, the chamber collected approximately $6,000 to encourage cigar businessman Thompson to build a factory in Bartow. Mark A. Thompson initiated plans for the factory through the Cuban American Corporation, which he had helped organize in Tampa about 1923. A native of Chicago, Thompson moved to Miami, where he worked in a mail-order coffee business. In 1915, intrigued with the cigar industry, he organized Thompson & Company as a mail-order cigar business. Three years later Thompson relocated to Tampa, where he grew the business into a successful enterprise. He relocated the operation several times until 1923, when the company constructed a two-story building at 200 Edison Avenue. One of dozens of cigar factories in Ybor City, the building contained areas for hand-rolling cigars, a cigar vault, a print shop for labels, and shipping. About 1924, Thompson helped organize a subsidiary business, the Cuban American Cigar Corporation. Early directors and officers of both Thompson & Company and the Cuban American Corporation included Samuel G. Thompson,

Maurice Eckland, Anna V. Stewart, and Eugene Pizzetta. Eckland and Pizzetta started their careers in the cigar industry in 1919, and eventually became top company officers in the Thompson organization.1 A pioneer in the cigar mail order business, Thompson & Company shipped its products to customers on approval. Manufactured with Havana tobacco, trademark products included Empress of Cuba, Royal Palm, and Thompson's Tampa. The company established its customer base throughout the United States, and in Canada, Norway, Russia, and South and Central America.

Labor challenges had confronted cigar factory owners almost since the inception of the industry in Tampa in the 1880s. Strikes in 1892,1901, and 1910 had curtailed production levels, and a ten-month strike in 1920 was especially difficult for owners, some of whom lost markets and suffered substantial inventory losses. Others, such as F. Lozano, Son & Company, closed their operations and sold out. In addition to strikes, some manufacturers, such as Thompson & Company, experienced resistance from labor as they modernized their plants. In 1924, Tampa businessman Eli Witt installed the first cigar rolling machinery in his Havatampa plant, which became a highly regarded and efficient cigar business. But, for a variety of reasons, most owners were slow to follow Witt's lead. Most workers were uncomfortable using machines and insisted on making cigars in the time-tested, hand-rolled tradition. In addition, many manufacturers did not want to bear the expense of

upgrading their equipment and retraining employees. A few progressive owners who installed new equipment were confronted by the force of tradition and resentment from workers to innovation, and made only modest gains using new equipment and retraining employees. Not until the 1930s did machines become common in Tampa's cigar factories. A few owners, including Thompson & Company, sought relief from both unions and resistance to technological change by moving out of Tampa to open new operations. Because of its close proximity to Tampa, Polk County was attractive to some cigar manufacturers. By 1939, cigar factories operated in Bartow, Lakeland, and Winter Haven. By then, earlier operations had only recently closed in Fort Meade, Frostproof, Lake Wales, and Loughman.2

In 1925, following the opening of the factory in Ybor City, and formation of the Cuban American Corporation, Thompson expanded the company's operations into Bartow. To encourage his commercial investment, the Bartow Chamber of Commerce collected approximately $6,000 to encourage Thompson to build in the city. Thompson's motivations were in part, to avoid recurrent labor unrest and unionization in Tampa, and to overcome resistance to mechanization within the industry, both by laborers and even other

manufacturers. Thompson selected in a site East Bartow beside the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad tracks. The lot Thompson chose had been divided into residential lots by F. E. Burrows in 1915, but remained undeveloped. In February 1925, the city vacated an alley that originally ran east-to-west through the block, which permitted the company to construct its factory near the mid-line of the block.3. The cigar company let the construction contract to William L. Seward of Bartow in February 1925. Seward had recently installed a concrete plant in Bartow, where he manufactured "Anchor Hi-Test Hollow Concrete Tile," which he used to assemble the building. Completed in June 1925 at a cost of approximately $35,000, the distinctive building had shaped parapets, a large hip monitor, and white stucco walls. In late-1924, Thompson hired architect William H. Odell to draft the plans for the Bartow cigar factory in the Mission Revival genre. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Odell graduated from Detroit's Institute of Technology in the early-1920s and then found employment in several of Detroit's architectural firms, including Giffels & Vallet and Rossetti Associates. He briefly worked in St. Petersburg, Florida, during the mid-1920s, but then returned to Detroit. The Bartow factory was among his early projects. In the 1930s, Odell worked in the U. S. Department of the Treasury's office of the supervising architect, where he developed plans for buildings for the Department of the Interior. After World War II, he organized a partnership with Derrick &

Gamber, but then formed his own firm in 1955. Notable works attributed to Odell include the Pontiac State Hospital (1948), Ford Motor Company Engine Testing Building in Dearborn (1952), the Monroe-Randolph Commercial Building (1956) and the Second & Howard Building (1957) in Detroit.4. Supervised by Max Cook, employees began operating two cigar-making machines purchased from the American Machinery and Foundry Company of Brooklyn, New York, that month. Eventually the company installed thirty machines in the building. Although a number of men worked at the factory, the company primarily hired girls. Machines acquired in the 1920s cost approximately $3,500 each, and required supervision by three employees, who could make 600 cigars per hour. No hand-made products were made at the facility until the mid-1930s. The machines manufactured long-filler cigars, "turning out the cigars in as perfect and frequently more perfect condition than can be done by hand." Approximately 150 people worked in the factory, manufacturing nearly 100,000 cigars daily.5 In 1929, near the height of its production, the company manufactured and sold approximately 20,000,000 cigars and enjoyed sales of $500,000, in large part because of the success of the Bartow plant. In 1938, the Bartow plant produced 120,000 cigars each day.6. The company did not develop a residential quarters for its employees. Instead, most laborers found homes nearby in Bartow. Tobacco strippers Mattie Wilson and Vannie Hart both lived at 710 East Church

Street. Claradell Howell, another tobacco stripper, resided on East Main Street. Ernest Hauesler and William R. Ulrickson were roller machine operators who lived on East Church Street and South Dudley Avenue, respectively. Sandy Sterling, one of the relatively few African-Americans employed by the company, lived on South Fifth Avenue. The company operated the factory between 1925 and 1961, but few long-time workers or family generations have been documented. Machine roller Ulrickson labored at the factory during the 1920s, but had moved on by the mid-1940s. Many young girls eventually left the company, and were replaced by other young employees. Exceptions to this trend included Joseph and Dollie Sanchez, who began their careers in Tampa's cigar industry, but moved to Bartow in the 1930s and remained at the local factory for several decades. Edith Sanchez Glisson began work at the Bartow factory in 1948 and remained until 1961, when the company closed the plant. Max Cook, the first manager, remained only a few years. Indeed, few families, other than some of the management and the owners, made a career of working at the factory, or for the company.7. During the Great Depression, Thompson & Company consolidated its holdings. In late-1929, the Cuban American Corporation conveyed the Bartow factory to its parent company. Edwin E. Crusoe, Jr. became factory manager. A native of Key West, Crusoe arrived in Tampa in the 1910s, became a superintendent in the Thompson & Company's Tampa cigar operation, and then moved to Bartow. He supervised the cigar factory after Max Cook left, and managed the Bartow facility for nearly two decades. In January 1936, Thompson & Company closed its Tampa plant, and transferred its hand-rolled cigar operations to Bartow. This consolidation trend typified Tampa's cigar industry during the Great Depression, when eleven firms moved out of the city and five others closed. Although Thompson & Company relocated its hand-rolled cigar department to Bartow, it maintained its sales office and shipping department in Tampa. Thompson died in April 1935, and his wife, Clara Ward Thompson became company president, a position she held until her death in 1951. The company closed the Bartow plant in September 1961, ending its manufacturing operations. Later sold to Robert Franzbalu, the company still sells fine cigars, including Fuentas and Partagas, and maintains a website at www.thompson.com.8 During the 1960s, the former cigar factory served as the headquarters of Bartow's American Legion Post # 3, and then Polk County's "commodities distribution center" between 1969 and 1971. From 1974 to 1989, the county used the building as its social services warehouse.9.

The Bartow factory building was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.