Western Travel, Cigars and Native American Images
Cigars were brought along during our first road trip through the American West. Our travel buddies were cigar smokers who, inspired by Clint Eastwood in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” brought cigarillos along during our sojourn across the Mohave Desert. At night we camped out, and the cigars were companion accessories to the setting of cold nights out around the fire with the endless sky lit by a melee of diamond stars and surrounded by crisp, dry air delicately scented by the aroma of premium cigar smoke.
The American West has a great tradition of cigar consumption in the old saloons and on cattle drives. From the turn of the 19th century when cattle and railroad barons played poker and spun deals in St. Louis and San Francisco, to the turn of the 20th century when industrial giants like Henry Ford, J.P. Getty and Andrew Carnegie found themselves influencing the century that would see two world wars. The cigar was a companion in smoke-filled rooms and at secret poker tables. There was always a cigar-smoking gambler or two on stage coaches heading west, and after that aboard club cars on transcontinental trains from New York to Chicago to California. Cigars do indeed have a travel history in the American West.
“Cigar store Indians,” originally designed as plaques and statues representing Native Americans, became the symbol of tobacco and tobacco advertising during the early 19th and 20th centuries. These statues and plaques were most often used in stores, hotels and outside restaurants and bars to signal (often illiterate customers) the availability of tobacco, or that smoking was permitted inside the establishment. The complete, life-sized figures of “American Indians” were generally used by tobacco-shop owners, with smaller plaques used in general stores.
Images of Native Americans became connected with the sale of tobacco after American Indians introduced the plant to the Europeans who explored and settled in the Americas. Cigar store Indian statues first appeared in Europe, once tobacco was available there. The wooden carvings were based on images created by artists who matched descriptions, rather than first-hand viewings of actual Native Americans. The figures, which most often ended up looking like Europeans in Native American dress, were clothed in fringed buckskins, were draped in blankets and wore feathered headdresses. They did not actually resemble the members of any particular tribe. The sculptors carved chiefs, braves, princesses and maidens, sometimes with papooses. Most of the figures grasped tobacco or cigars in their hands or displayed leaves on their clothing. There were several artists in the United States who specialized in carving ship figureheads, architectural details and portrait busts, then turned to creating figures of American Indians full-time as demand increased. Names of note in this genre of carving are John Cromwell, Thomas Brooks, the Skillin family, and Samuel Robb, who operated studios in Northeastern cities and put out product catalogues.
Modern times have called for the image of the cigar store Indian to all but disappear, but the Native American will always be remembered as the source of our fine tobacco. When the occasion calls for a fine cigar, enjoy one–especially if you’re under western skies.
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