El-Rees-So Inner Cigar Box label

This interesting label for El-Rees-So King Size Cigars measures 8.25” Wide x 7.1” High. The label is embossed and in mint condition. The cigar label probably dates to the 1920s – 1930s and was made by the El-Rees-So company of Greensboro, North Carolina. Greensboro was cited as the largest cigar-producing city between Baltimore and Tampa in the 1920s and 1930s.John Rees, a former Southern Railroad employee, started making El-Rees-So about 1915. His plant was on the second floor over a first-floor cigar shop he and his wife owned. The El-Rees-So business grew rapidly and employed 300 people by 1917, pretty good for a city of 10,000 to 15,000. The company boasted in a pamphlet that "all the cigars are made by girls ... pretty girls."

In 1926, Rees joined with other investors to form the El Moro Cigar Co., which made El Moros and El Rees. Cigar making, unfortunately, had a short life in Greensboro. The El Moro Company was the last cigar maker to close, finally selling in 1955 to T.E. Brooks Co. of Red Lion, Pennsylvania.

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