The Marlboro sign and a very short history of tobacco manufacturing in South Richmond

A quarter of the way through their VA 100: 100 people, places, things that you should know about Richmond series, the RTD finally gets to something on this side of the river with The Marlboro sign. They don’t really get into it beyond “they make a lot of cigarettes”:

Some 1,700 Richmonders make some 76 billion cigarettes a year there. That’s way down from the days when the plant was built in 1973: 4 of 10 Americans smoked then; now it’s just a bit more than 1 in 10.

Philip Morris is directly tied to the manufacturing history of South Richmond. Their and other tobacco companies’ growth fueled by the 20th century boom in cigarette smoking was responsible for a significant amount of the built environment in the area over a 50 year period.

The majority of earlier tobacco manufacturing in Richmond was located in the Shockoe area. After its 1910 annexation into Richmond, roomier Manchester with its better access to the river and rail lines began to attract the next generation of tobacco related development.

Philip Morris first came to Richmond just over a century ago (1919) – only a few years before Marlboro was patented in 1925. They opened their new production facility at 700 Stockton Street in 1929.

The nearby Chesapeake Warehouses at 1100 Dinwiddie Avenue opened that same year and served Philip Morris, American, Reynolds, P. Lorillard, and other tobacco companies. The American Tobacco Company South Richmond Complex at 400-800 Richmond Highway was first developed 1911 and then expanded in the 1920s and 1930s. The Blair Tobacco Storage Warehouse Complex at 2601 Maury Street was first built in 1939. The iconic Model Tobacco building at 1100 Richmond Highway was built in 1939.

Some of these building still support industry, some have been turned into luxury apartments.

Philip Morris built its manufacturing center with the sign down 95 in 1973.