The era when the cigar industry was the queen of L’Épiphanie reappears in the collective memory, thanks in particular to a mural recently installed on a building in the town center of the small commune of Lanaudière.
“The cigar industry was dominant because there were many manufacturers and many people working both for the culture and for the refinement of the product,” explained Pierre Picard, Director of Leisure and Culture for the city of Epiphany.
The cigar industry was well established in L’Épiphanie in the late 19th century, we have been able to glean from archival documents provided by Mr Picard and Donald Bricault, a former mayor, who helped produce a book on the history of the Church, published a few months ago (“Epiphany: Friends of History”). Then cigar manufacturing led to the manufacture of cigar boxes in 1925 with the formation of The Quebec Box Company, also known as Canada Manufacturing.
Photo provided by Donald Bricault
The mural in the city center, inaugurated this autumn to highlight the story, evokes memories of the 1920s when passenger and freight trains crossed in front of the village station. There, an old cart is being pulled, on which you can see boxes of Edmon cigars, cigars and boxes from L’Épiphanie, among other things.
Simon Dessureault / QMI AGENCY
Canada Manufacturing once employed over 350 people, about 10% of the city’s population. “They seemed to be offering competitive salaries, with the best hourly rate in 1952 being $0.74,” explained Donald Bricault.
Photo courtesy of the City of L’Épiphanie
But by the late 1950s, Canada Manufacturing had changed its vocation to making small wooden items. Then in 1979 the building was completely destroyed by a violent fire.
Another factory, the General Cigar, also thrived in L’Épiphanie. Cigars of well-known brands, including “Peg Top”, were rolled there. Dozens of women were responsible for rolling the cigars into molds appropriate for each brand.
Photo courtesy of the City of L’Épiphanie
The cigar industry lasted from 1895 to 1955 in L’Épiphanie.
Tobacco growing is also part of the history of L’Épiphanie
Photo provided by Donald Bricault
In addition to the production of cigars and cigar boxes, tobacco culture is historically very present in L’Épiphanie and the surrounding area.
This type of cultivation began in the area around 1845. “In our community we grew strong tobacco, the kind that was used to make cigars or to smoke in a pipe,” explains Amédée Poitras, co-author of L’Épiphanie: les amis de l’histoire. and that there was also something for the heaviest to chew on the little ‘lump of grass’.
“To grow tobacco you need strong, hard soil, which we had here at L’Épiphanie,” said Mr Poitras. I would say 98% of the growers also had a tobacco barn.”
And when the tobacco was ripe, the growers would offer their production over the counter to the village’s factories or to local traders, who would sell it to Montreal’s factories that made cigars, cigarettes or chewing tobacco.
Then tobacco was supplanted and farmers turned to other crops in the last decades of the 20th century as global demand fell amid increased public awareness of the health risks of smoking.