The romantic saga of cigar box cedar

IrHIS lS a romantic story of how a I smallgroup of adventurers brought out of the jungles of Mexico virtually all the cedar used in cigar boxes in America for over a decade.

Roy and Tilcomb, Inc., a pioneer Arizona lumber company, cut Mexican cedar along with hardrvoods in the swamps and jungles of San Blas on the west coast of Mexico near Guadalajara in the 1920s. Popularly knolvn as cigar box cedar, the u,ood was used to make the boxes in which cigars were packed prior to the introduction of cellophane wrappings.

Exciting and unique describes their method of timber cruising as the old timers remember it. Gus Michaels, mill manager, and his Mexican logging foreman, would launch a rovr'boal and ro\^' out into the swampy area of the jungle. A small crew of boys would accompany them.

When they reached the timber area, the men would give each boy a leaf of one of the species they were looking for. They would then have the first boy climb the tallest tree with instructions to count the number of trees in the area with leaves the same as the one he carried. They would row a few

Story at a Glance

How adventurous lumbermen batlled the perils of Mexican jungles to locate cedar for cigar boxes. ..medicinalgin and qui. nine water averted mosquito altacks while timber cruising. hundred yards farther and send No. 2 boy up the tallest tree and so on.

\\Ihile the boys were climbing and countin,u, the men in the boat were fighting off mosquitos with plenty of gin and quinine water.

This story sounds great as far as hardn'oods are concerned, but using this technique to locate the coniferous cedar stretches the imagination. Regardless, all agree that Merican cedar for cigar boxes was the big cash deal for the firm.

After the logs were cut, they were (Please turn to page 28)