Globe Tobacco Company Building

The Globe Tobacco Company Building is the oldest tobacco manufactory still extant in the City of Detroit. The Globe Tobacco Company was established in 1871 on Atwater Street by Thomas McGraw, Hiram Walker, William A. Moore, and O.P. Hazard.

In 1888 the company had this building on Fort Street constructed to house its expanding operations. By 1891 tobacco manufacturing was the leading industry in Detroit with the Globe Tobacco Company being one of the top five manufacturers. The Globe Tobacco Company had an extensive trade throughout sections of North and South America and Great Britain, although its prime market was the northwest and northeast sections of the United States. The company went out of business around 1925.

Detroit's tobacco industry goes back to 1841, when George Miller began producing chewing tobacco with Canadian tobacco. This was a crude operation; the tobacco was dried in the loft of a building. The tobacco trade picked up in 1856 when Daniel Scotten established the Hiawatha Tobacco Factory. By 1864 there were seven large manufacturing establishments in the city, probably the largest market in what was then the West.

In 1891 tobacco manufacturing was the leading industry of Detroit, with the top five tobacco manufacturers being the American Eagle Tobacco Company, John J. Bagley and Company, Daniel Scotten and Company, Banner Tobacco Company, and Globe Tobacco Company. By 1913, the tobacco industry ranked first in Detroit in the number of establishments, third in number of people employed, and fifth in the value of the product. The big tobacco factories were the largest employers of women in the city; the ten largest employed 302 males and 3,896 females, many under 20 years old.

In 1925 it was reported that more than a million cigars were made each day in Detroit, and, as all quality cigars were hand rolled, this provided among the highest paid jobs for women in the city, paying $25 to $40 per week. Globe Tobacco Company was established in 1871 on Atwater Street by Thomas McGraw, Hiram Walker, William A. Moore, and O.P. Hazard.

Thomas McGraw (1824-1897), the president of the company, had established the firm house of T. McGraw and Company in 1864. He invested his money in real estate and manufacturing in Detroit, and was a president of the Michigan Savings Bank. Hiram Walker, founder of Hiram Walker and Sons Distillery in Windsor, Ontario, prospered in the distillery business.

William A. Moore was a prominent Detroit attorney. O.P. Hazard was a pants and overall manufacturer and a relative of Rowland Hazard, whose great-granddaughter, Sarah Selden, was the wife of Thomas McGraw.

Touted as 'among the largest manufactories in the West' in an 1878 article in the Detroit Free Press, the Walker, McGraw and Company Globe Tobacco Works, at 31, 33, and 35 Atwater Street East manufactured about 300,000 pounds of Globe Tobacco annually in 1878. Although their leading one-cut brand was the Globe, their other specialties included the World, Phaon, Myrtle, and Hope brands. In addition to those chewing tobaccos, Globe also manufactured Globe fine-cut for smoking. In 1880, the Globe Tobacco Company of Detroit was incorporated.

The officers at that time were Thomas McGraw, president, W.K. Parcher, vice president, and Alexander A. Boutell, secretary/treasurer. By 1883 production was over 1,300,000 pounds of smoking and chewing tobacco annually.

The Globe was still the leading brand of chewing tobacco while Nerve and Fearless were the best smoking brands.

The Globe Tobacco Company Building is a six story red brick building designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and built in 1888. The building is located in the northeast corner of Brush and East Fort Streets in the heart of Detroit's central business district. Its front facade, facing Fort Street, is articulated into five bays, the central bay containing a wooden double-doored entrance within a large round arched opening. A block of rock-faced limestone ornaments the base, impost, and an area in-between on both sides of the entrance opening.

On the first story of the other four bays of the front facade are large round-arched windows with stone imposts, stone sills, and brick voussoirs. Pilasters rise from the first story to the fourth, culminating in the arcading that forms the fifth story round-arched windows. At the base of each pilaster is a rock-faced limestone block. Stories two through four have two window openings per bay that share a stone sill.

Projected brickwork between the pilasters separates the stories. The sixth floor is not articulated into bays and is separated from the fifth floor by brick denticulation. It consists of rectangular window openings evenly spaced and separated by pilasters. Brick arcading and a brick corbel table above separates the sixth story from the parapet wall, which consists of square brick panels with stepped brick corbelling above and a raised panel centered at the top of the front facade with masonry balls at the corners.

While the corbelling beneath the cornice line may appear decorative, it does, in fact, step out to provide bearing for heavy timber roof trusses while protecting timber from fire and weathering. The west elevation of the Globe Tobacco Company building is very similar to the front facade in the articulation of its ten bays. The northwest corner, because it contains the staircase and secondary entrance, is articulated slightly differently. The east elevation and rear elevation are simpler in detail and composition, containing four-over-four double-hung windows within evenly spaced segmental-arched openings.

For a slow burning effect, the Globe Tobacco Company building was designed with heavy timber floor beams spaced about four feet apart. These were held up by girders, forming a compact ceiling with fireproof layers. This type of construction was endorsed by insurance companies at the time to reduce the risk of fire to its lowest possible point without going into the cost of fireproof construction. Supporting columns rest one on top of the other to alleviate shrinkage and undue pressure on the walls.

The building's principle stairway, on the northwest corner of the building, was enclosed in a 15 feet by 15 feet passage of brick, and the elevator shaft was also enclosed in brick. An additional stairway is located in the front of the building. The interior is open warehouse type plan. At the time of this nomination, the deteriorated windows have been removed for replacement with new windows which duplicate the configuration of the original.