Historic cigar company's memory kept burning at Marion's Shovel City Drinkery

Derek Mullins loves Marion history. In fact, he just loves Marion.

And that love for all things local has spilled over into the business that he and his wife, Andrea, own and operate, Shovel City Drinkery. The upscale pub has been open since Sept. 23, 2020, at 181 N. Main St. in Marion.

The building that houses the 3,000-square-foot space occupied by Shovel City has been a home for local bars since at least the 1950s, such as Frank's Wunderbar, Randy's Wunderbar, and most recently, Circa. Mullins said the building also served as a harness store in the 1910s, a Salvation Army in the 1920s, and a doctor's office at one point.

Mullins described Shovel City Drinkery as "a craft beer bar, a wine bar, a bourbon bar, a cocktail bar, and those are the things we hold dear to us and we wish to share them with the people of Marion."

The interior design of Shovel City Drinkery intentionally features many decorations that highlight Marion's past as well as the history of the building in which it's located, Mullins explained.

"If you look around here, we do a lot of Marion history," he said. "On this side of the bar, we have the original dealer's cigarette license from 1955 for this establishment. We found an old picture of the Marion Jaycees and we had a customer come in and tell us that his father was a member of the Marion Jaycees. So I thought that was pretty cool.

"We got an old picture of the Whitey's (Tavern) building next door. It used to be the John F. Lust and Sons Manufacturing and Confectioners. We've got an old flour sack from the Marion Grain and Supply Company. We just love Marion history."

Mullins' love for history is also evidenced by his decision to offer cigars made by the J.C. Newman Cigar Co. to his customers that enjoy a quality stogie. J.C. Newman Cigar Co. was founded in 1895 in Cleveland by entrepreneur Julius Caesar Newman. Based in Ohio for several decades, the company moved its headquarters to the historic Ybor City district in Tampa, Florida, in the early 1950s. Marion was the site of one of its factories.

Mullins said he sells the J.C. Newman Brickhouse Double Connecticut Toro cigars at Shovel City Drinkery.

"This has a quadruple cap and you get a lot of flavor from that," he said, noting that the cap is a piece of wrapper leaf placed at the head, or top, of the cigar to secure the wrapper. "Most cigars have one cap, maybe two caps. Cuba is known for using triple caps. But this is the first one that I've had that has a quadruple cap. It's a really good cigar."

According to J.C. Newman Cigar Co. historian Holden Rasmussen, the Marion factory opened on Aug. 15, 1919, and was located at 280 N. Main St. The building is the home of The Folks Creative Printers, Inc., which purchased the former cigar factory in 1962.

Mullins said he wasn't aware of that fact until he visited the J.C. Newman Cigar Co. in Tampa.

"My buddy and I went to Florida for spring break and we went to the J.C. Newman factory," he said. "They're the oldest continuously-operating, family-owned cigar factory. They're a fourth-generation company and still making cigars to this day. It was interesting when we went there, we saw an exhibit about Marion, Ohio, and that they had a factory here. I thought, Marion, Ohio, that's crazy."

In his blog post about the Marion factory on the J.C. Newman Cigar Co. website, Rasmussen wrote that Marion Area Chamber of Commerce Commissioner Josiah Bindley and then U.S. Sen. Warren G. Harding "proved instrumental in attracting J.C. Newman to Marion." Bindley and Harding were friends with J.C. Newman and hoped having one of his cigar factories in Marion would boost the local job market.

Rasmussen further wrote that the factory opening and operating successfully in Marion helped spur the growth of the J.C. Newman Cigar Co., allowing it to expand beyond its home base in Cleveland and plants across Ohio. It set the stage for an eventual 1927 merger with the Mendelsohn Cigar Co. and the relocation of the company to Tampa in the 1950s.

While few remnants of the interior of the old cigar factory exist in the building on North Main Street, parts of the building have that vintage feel, especially a loading dock door on the north side of the building that is shown in a photograph from the early 1900s. Folks President Christine Dickson said some doors located in the basement might be original to the building or at least date back to the time when the cigar factory was housed there.

"I knew that Folks Printers was in an old cigar factory, but it was really interesting to see that (J.C. Newman Cigar Co.) had a whole exhibit in their museum about it," Mullins said. "They said that is one of the only J.C. Newman Cigar factories that is still standing. The other ones have been torn down or whatever. So even though that one has been repurposed, that's their original building, which is pretty cool.

"To know that we still have an old J.C. Newman factory building in Marion I thought was pretty impressive. "I see historical markers everywhere, I thought that building should at least be worthy of a plaque or something to designate that the factory was here."

For information about J.C. Newman Cigar Co., go to the company website www.jcnewman.com.

Learn more about Shovel City Drinkery by visiting its Facebook page.

Email: ecarter@gannett.com | Twitter: @AndrewACCarter 

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Historic cigar company's memory kept burning at Shovel City Drinkery