HISTORY  OF  214  N.E. JEFFERSON

                                       PEORIA, ILLINOIS

                                               CIGARS

There was a time when Downtown Peoria housed at least ten cigar factories, bringing employment to hundreds of people…mostly women.  The first establishment was opened here in 1859.  Now all this took place before Prohibition, and by the time 1920 rolled around the cigar business in Peoria, Illinois began to fade away. Female employment ceased for many local women and most of the remaining factories had but one employee. They were called “Buckeye Bosses” for some reason.  By 1937 the Peoria City Directory had one factory listed, belonging to Nathan Solomon, producing the Mirex Cigar. Peoria factories turned out cigars such as Gate-Post, El Veretta, Saucy Baby, Por Tuna, Try Me and Corona, among others.

 

The building pictured within its frame belonged to Frank P. Lewis and was located at 217 N.E. Jefferson in Peoria, Illinois. His cigar factory thrived for at least a decade, and on more than one year his business topped out at just over a million dollars in cigar sales.  The Lewis Factory closed its doors in 1924.  A new business in town called the Humitube Company took over the building in late 1924.

 

217 N.E. Jefferson was the home of Peoria’s most famous citizen, Robert Green Ingersoll. He was not born here, but often bragged about his home in Peoria, Illinois. He formed an army group here just after the Civil War began, giving himself the rank of colonel.   Ingersoll was a lawyer and practiced law not only here in town, but throughout the United States. He was known as an excellent orator and of course his writings were internationally known. There is a statute of him in the Glen Oak Park.  Most people locally knew him as ‘The Great Agnostic.’

 

217 N.E. Jefferson later was revamped and converted into the New National Hotel. At one time an elegant hotel but declined over the years and was razed in 1970.

 

           Presented by local author and historian:   norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net