The origin of E. Regensburg & Sons Co. began in Frankfurt, Germany where Edward Regensburg (1846-1907) learned about the cigar industry in America and moved to New York City with his family in 1876.  Eleven years later he established E. Regensburg & Sons Co. and began making hand rolled cigars there. 

E. Regensburg & Sons Co. first location in Ybor City was at the A. B. Ballard cigar factory building at 2007 21st St. which was later occupied in May 1920 by Hav-A-Tampa.  In 1911 the factory in NYC proved to be too small so E. Regensburg & Sons Co. moved to this new cigar factory building at 2701 N 16th St. in Ybor City.  According to the National Register of Historic Places, this building was designed by New York architect S. S. Schwartz in 1910.  It had enough seats for approximately one thousand cigar workers.

Several additions have been made through the years to the original structure, including an L shaped 4,795 sq. ft. office space on the northwest corner of the original structure and several additions on the south and east sides as well. Today the building consists of 98,862 sq. ft. total gross area not including the 9,621 sq. ft. warehouse/storage addition in 1959 on the northeast corner of the city block that the whole complex occupies.

The building became famous for its four sided clock tower that was nicknamed “El Reloj”, designed by the well known Boston clock maker E. Howard Company.  The clock became a landmark and an important part of Ybor City life as local residents kept their time by it.  Over the years, three of the four clock faces broke and the clock’s mechanism ceased to function.

In 1917 E. Regensburg & Sons Co. absorbed the S. Fernandez Co. and in 1919 opened a branch factory in West Tampa at the corner of Abdella & Gomez which had been occupied by the Alvarez-Mendez branch of the Preferred Havana Tobacco Co.  In May 1920 E. Regensburg & Sons Co. moved the West Tampa branch factory to the old Y. Pendas & Alvarez factory building.  E. Regensburg & Sons Co. continued to operate both cigar factories until 1933. After the 1931 cigar strike, they closed down the West Tampa branch factory.  Due to growing shipping costs to the northeast and labor union problems in Ybor City, in 1951 E. Regensburg & Sons Co. closed its Tampa operations where it employed two hundred eighty cigar workers and twelve office staff and moved to Allentown, PA.  

Julius Ceasar "J.C." Newman (1875-1958) emigrated from Austria-Hungary in 1888 and first ventured into the tobacco industry as an apprentice at a small cigar factory in Cleveland, OH.  He lost his job in 1895 due to the Panic of 1893 which lasted until 1897.  Unemployed, in 1895 he had the opportunity to start rolling cigars in the family property and J.C. Newman Cigar Co. was born. Expansion came quickly, opening two factories outside of Cleveland and venturing into cigar-making machines, a brand new manufacturing process at the time not yet perfected.  In 1921 a recession hit the cigar business and J.C. ended up closing all the factories except the one in Marion, OH.  That led in 1927 to a merger with the Mendelsohn Cigar Co., the other main Cleveland cigar manufacturer.  That merger created Mendelsohn & Newman Cigar Manufacturers, Inc., later M & N Cigar Manufacturers, Inc. located at 125 Bank St. in Cleveland, OH. 

In 1953, while visiting Tampa, J.C. stopped saw this building which was not in use since E. Regensburg & Sons Co. vacated it in 1951.  He requested his son Stanford take a look at the factory.  In July 1953, Standard Cigar Co. of Tampa, a subsidiary of M&N Cigar Manufacturers, Inc. started operations headed by Stanford.  They rented a single floor of the factory and brought machines from their Cleveland factory as part of a one year experiment.  In January of 1954, M&N Cigar Manufacturers, Inc. decided to close its Cleveland operation and move to Tampa.  The J.C. Newman Cigar Co. is therefore the oldest family owned cigar maker in the United States and operates the last remaining production cigar factory in Ybor City.  

Today, back to its original corporate name since 1997, J.C. Newman Cigar Co. produce the hand rolled The American and Angel Cuesta brands and several machine manufactured brands in Tampa.  They also operate a cigar factory in Nicaragua and partnered with Tabacalera A. Fuente in the Dominican Republic to manufacture several of the brands they acquired from Cuesta Rey, namely Diamond Crown, Cuesta Rey and La Unica.  In Nicaragua, they manufacture several brands including Don José, Alcázar, El Batón and Brick House.  J.C. Newman Cigar Co. is also the exclusive distributor of the famous Arturo Fuente Montesino and Fuente OpusX cigar brands in the US.

In 2002, J. C. Newman Cigar Co. built a museum with photos and the remaining original clock face.  The rusted inner clock mechanisms were restored and installed in the first floor museum and reattached to the 1,500-pound bell in the tower.  The clock now functions and chimes for Ybor City once more, fact I can attest to as it chimed while I was taking the pictures in 2015. The "El Reloj" factory, has undergone some recent interior upgrades as evidenced by this article in the Florida Caribbean Architect magazine.  Their museum is a fantastic showcase of Cigar City history and the tours of the facilities and the cigar manufacturing process they conduct daily is an excellent experience and a fantastic learning opportunity for everyone interested in the cigar manufacturing process and history.   As of June 2023, renovations of what used to be the Sanchez & Haya Real Estate Co. building now owned by J. C. Newman Cigar Co., across Columbus Dr. from the El Reloj factory, are under way for it to be a hotel, cigar bar and café at the heart of a revitalization project creating the El Reloj District in Ybor City.

In the YouTube video below, third generation family member and President of J.C. Newman Co. Eric Newman tells the extensive and very interesting story of the Newman family involvement and development in the cigar industry since its beginnings in the late 19th Century.