Schiege Cigar Factory
Round Top, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
By 1859 the U.S. was importing 900 million cigars yearly, mainly from Germany. Tariffs, levied on imported cigars beginning 1862, resulted in a dramatic increase in domestic cigar manufacturing. Tobacco was still an important cash crop when Charles Schiege, Jr., erected a one-room frame cigar factory here in 1882. The factory's roadside facade bore a sign reading "Segars & Tobaccos." Factory workers made the cigars by hand and mainly from U.S. domestic tobaccos. Schiege marketed his cigars under a variety of labels, including "Texas Star," until 1932 when he closed the factory. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Congress began taxing imported cigars in 1862 to help pay for the Civil War, it accidentally seeded a domestic cigar boom — and in 1882 Charles Schiege Jr. joined it, raising a one-room frame factory here beneath a sign reading "Segars & Tobaccos." His workers rolled cigars by hand from mostly American tobacco, sold under labels like "Texas Star." The little factory kept rolling until Schiege closed it in 1932.
Why it matters
This modest workshop shows how federal tariff policy could reshape everyday American industry, turning a German-inspired luxury import into a homegrown small-town trade.
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Related people
- · Charles Schiege, Jr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Schiege House
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Prussian immigrants Charles and Caroline Schiege acquired land in this German-settled corner of Fayette County in 1861. Their only surviving child, Charles Henry Jr., built a two-story home here about 1885 and, after being widowed, raised ten children with his second wife. Beyond farming, he ran a local cigar factory and served Round Top as justice of the peace, mayor, marshal, and alderman.
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Johann Traugott Wandke left Prussia in 1855, settling near La Grange with his wife and daughters before moving to Round Top around 1860. About 1863 he built this native-stone home and workshop, where his skills as a mechanic and cabinetmaker found their finest expression in the pipe organs he crafted from local cedar. His instruments served several area churches, including Round Top's Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
Schiege Cigar Factory Manager's House
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Around 1882, German immigrant Charles Schiege opened a cigar factory at Round Top, staffing it largely with single men who slept in the building's attic. For his factory manager — usually a married man — Schiege built this modest German vernacular cottage. Among its early residents was manager Paul Herman Helmecke, who lived here with his wife Martha and their five children in the 1880s and 1890s, part of the close-knit German community that shaped this corner of Fayette County.
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