No Detroit architect was more imaginative or more productive than Albert Kahn. People are impressed by the range of structures he designed: the Livingston Lighthouse on Belle Isle, the beautiful Clemens Library on the campus of the University of Michigan, the Fisher Building in the New Center area of Detroit, the Detroit Athletic Club at Grand Circus Park, the Reverend Samuel Francis Smith Memorial Flagpole on Belle Isle and dozens, if not hundreds, of industrial plants and several synagogues, especially the two Beth El edifices on Woodard. However, the massive but attractive four-story structure you see pictured above is, so far as I know, the only cigar factory he designed.
Detroit became one of the nation’s leading tobacco production centers in the late Nineteenth Century. I am not sure why. The presence of high-quality tobacco from nearby Ontario is one reason. The presence of many Germans who enjoyed cigars and knew how to make excellent ones may be another. Perhaps the numerous German immigrants and the availability of high quality tobacco explains why Detroit became a one of the nation’s leading center for manufacturing cigars and cut plug tobacco in the decades before 1900. Cigarettes did not become a popular way to consume tobacco until after J. B. Duke perfected a machine for their production. Prior to that, those who used tobacco smoked cigars or placed it in their mouths—chewing tobacco for men and snuff for women. I am an older person myself, but I have never met a woman who reported using stuff. My father told me that when he was young, many women used snuff even if they did not admit it.
Oscar Rosenberger founded the San Telmo firm in 1898 and headed the business until his death in 1918. As the firm expanded, they needed more space for production so Albert Kahn was engaged to design the pleasant structure you see, one that was completed in 1910. The firm had at least one other plant and sold cigars under such labels as Court Royal, La Renta and Joan of Ark. The Hess Brothers purchased the firm after the death of Mr. Rosenberger. So far as I know, no one has yet written an authoritative book about the history of the tobacco industry in Detroit, so I do not know when this firm closed. The tobacco industry played an unusual role in the city’s labor history. Many of the workers were women; indeed it was one of the few manufacturing industries where many immigrant women held jobs. And it was highly unionized with a vibrant history of strikes as women walked off their jobs to seek more pay.
I do not know when Detroit lost its dominant position in the tobacco industry. The rise of cigarettes and the decline in the use of cigars and chewing tobacco probably played a role. Perhaps the Ontario tobacco lost favor after North Carolina and Virginia farmers perfected the growing of that crop. However, by the end of the Nineteenth Century, a great deal of Cuban tobacco was arriving in Detroit so there is a long story about Detroit and tobacco that has yet to be told.
In 2009, the Southwest Housing Solutions group in southwest Detroit—a nonprofit organization that has had great successful in rehabilitating older building in southwest Detroit for residential uses—announced they had received a $350,000 grant to convert Albert Kahn’s San Telmo Cigar Factory into housing for moderate income households.
I do not know why Oscar Rosenberger selected San Telmo as the name for his successful tobacco firm. San Telmo is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. Perhaps, he borrowed the name from that city. That neighborhood carried this name because it is the location of the parish of San Pedro Gonzalez Telmo, the patron saint of mariners. He was born in Fromista, Spain in 1190, studied theology and was ordained a Dominican priest. He was apparently a gifted orator who devoted himself to preaching the gospel to the poor and to mariners in Galicia. He died in 1254 and was beatified by Pope Innocent IV just eight years after his death. However, there has been a delay in the canonization process for San Pedro Gonzalez Telmo, and as of 2009, he was not yet an official saint in the Roman church.
Architect; Albert Kahn
Date of completion: 1910
City of Detroit Designated Historic District: Not listed
State of Michigan Registry of Historic Sites: Not listed (But is should be listed)
National Register of Historic Places: Not listed
Use in 2009: Night club awaiting redeveloping into apartments or condominiums
Website for Southwest Housing Solutions: http://www.swsol.org/
Photograph: Ren Farley; November 12, 2009
Description written: December, 2009
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