by Kay Wells
In the late 1800s, Mr. A. N. Ahrens, Cloverdale citizen and cigar smoker, was mourning the unavailability of fine cigars. So, he decided to “grow his own”.
Sending away for tobacco seedlings, he nurtured them in his greenhouse (seeds require warm temperatures to germinate, about 75-80 degrees) and then planted them on acreage he owned southwest of town. When the crop matured and was cured, he then turned to manufacturing cigars. The company, the Hermitage Tobacco Company, was born in 1901, the cigars manufactured in a local warehouse. The Herald Cigar was the “BEST SMOKE AGOING”.
Sales were good at first, but subsequent harvests were disappointing, and the company failed by 1907. But Mr. Ahrens was undaunted, and opened a little cigar stand near downtown where he hand-rolled and sold cigars.
Source: Images of America CLOVERDALE by Wagele & Gray, and Historical Society records.
