Little Havana is a neighbourhood created by a political rupture. Cubans arriving after 1959 settled in the older districts of Riverside and Shenandoah, west of downtown Miami, expecting to go home within months. They did not. By 1970 the area was more than eighty-five percent Cuban. The Freedom Flights of 1965 to 1973 brought roughly a quarter of a million more, and the Mariel boatlift of 1980 about 125,000. SW 8th Street, Calle Ocho, became the commercial and symbolic axis of an exile capital.
Cigar making followed immediately, because the trade travelled in people. Simon Camacho opened Miami's first post-revolution factory in 1961. On 8 September 1964 Jose Orlando Padron, from a Pinar del Rio tobacco family, started his own with six hundred dollars saved from carpentry work; the same year Efraim Gonzalez and Juan Sosa opened theirs. In 1968 Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Sr. founded El Credito and brought La Gloria Cubana to the United States. The embargo of 7 February 1962 had cut off both Cuban cigars and Cuban leaf, so these makers rebuilt with Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan tobacco.
Miami could not hold volume production for long. Labour costs pushed Padron to Nicaragua in 1970 and later sent most of El Credito's output offshore; a Miami roller's day rate has run around one hundred dollars against roughly five in Nicaragua. What remained is a small, expensive, deliberately visible craft: storefront galeras on Calle Ocho where rollers work in the window and the cigars carry a Miami premium. The 1990s boom revived it, Jose Pepin Garcia's arrival in 2003 renewed it, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the neighbourhood a national treasure in 2017.
1959
Cuban arrivals begin concentrating in Riverside and Shenandoah, the districts that become Little Havana.
1961
Simon Camacho opens the first Cuban cigar factory of the exile period in Miami.
1962
The United States embargo takes effect on 7 February, ending legal imports of Cuban cigars and Cuban leaf.
1964
Jose Orlando Padron founds his company on 8 September with 600 dollars,
rolling about 200 cigars a day; Efraim Gonzalez and Juan Sosa open factories the same year.
1965
The Freedom Flights begin, carrying roughly a quarter of a million Cubans to Miami before ending in 1973.
1968
Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Sr. opens El Credito Cigars, bringing the La Gloria Cubana name to the United States.
1970
Padron shifts production to
Esteli, Nicaragua as Miami labour costs rise; other makers follow.
1980
The Mariel boatlift brings about 125,000 Cubans, reshaping the neighbourhood again.
1990s
The cigar boom lifts El Credito to about 35 rollers on Calle Ocho before most production moves to the Dominican Republic.
1999
Swedish Match buys El Credito from the Perez-Carrillo family; Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr. stays with the business until 2009.
2003
Jose Pepin Garcia opens El Rey de los Habanos on Calle Ocho, reviving Cuban-method
rolling in the neighbourhood.
2009
Three new factories open on Calle Ocho within months, and Perez-Carrillo launches E.P. Carrillo with his children.
2017
The National Trust for Historic Preservation designates Little Havana a national treasure.
No tobacco is grown in Miami and, because of the embargo, no Cuban leaf has legally entered since 1962. What the neighbourhood's factories work with is Dominican, Nicaraguan, Honduran and Ecuadorian leaf, much of it grown from Cuban seed carried out by the same families who left. The Miami premium is therefore not a terroir claim but a labour one: cigars rolled by hand in a storefront, often by rollers trained in Cuba, at United States wage rates. Several houses use the Cuban entubado method and have rollers sign the boxes they finish.
Jose Orlando Padron
Born 1926 in Pinar del Rio; founded his company in Miami on 8 September 1964 with 600 dollars and moved production to Nicaragua in 1970. Died 2017.
Simon Camacho
Opened Miami's first post-1959 cigar factory in 1961 and later helped start cigar manufacture in Nicaragua.
Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Sr.
Founded El Credito Cigars in Miami in 1968 and reintroduced La Gloria Cubana to the American market.
Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr.
Born in Pinar del Rio in 1951; took over El Credito, sold it in 1999, and launched E.P. Carrillo with his son and daughter in 2009.
Jose Pepin Garcia
Cuban roller who opened El Rey de los Habanos on Calle Ocho in 2003 and built My Father Cigars from it.
Sandy Cobas
Owner of El Titan de Bronze on Calle Ocho, one of the last working factories on the street, with about ten rollers.
Pedro Bello
Patriarch of the Bello family's Cuba Tobacco Cigar Co. at 1528 SW 8th Street, with tobacco roots in Cuba going back generations.
El Credito Cigars
Opened 1968 by Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Sr. and the source of La Gloria Cubana in the United States. At its mid-1990s peak it employed about 35 rollers in Miami before most production moved offshore.
El Titan de Bronze
A Calle Ocho storefront factory with roughly ten rollers producing 250,000 to 300,000 cigars a year, working in the Cuban tradition where one roller makes the whole cigar and signs the box.
Cuba Tobacco Cigar Co.
The Bello family's shop and
rolling room at 1528 SW 8th Street, making house blends and custom cigars with a minimum ageing period before sale.
El Rey de los Habanos
Opened by Jose Pepin Garcia in 2003 and the seed of My Father Cigars, which later moved its main production to
Esteli, Nicaragua.
Padron's first factory
Founded in Miami in 1964, initially
rolling about 200 cigars a day. Its name came from a Padron family factory in Piloto, Cuba; production moved to Nicaragua in 1970.
Calle Ocho works as a public stage for a private loss. Domino players fill Maximo Gomez Park on the corner of SW 8th Street and 15th Avenue; the memorials along SW 13th Avenue commemorate the Bay of Pigs brigade and other exile causes; ventanita counters serve cafecito standing up. Cigar rolling is part of that display: the rollers work in shop windows, and customers buy the sight of the work as much as the cigar. The neighbourhood's politics are unresolved and openly argued in the street, and the embargo that both isolated and protected these businesses remains the fault line. Since the 1990s the population has become substantially Central American, and Little Havana is now Cuban in name and mixed in fact.