Loading drays tcith tobacco hogsheads outside a Louisville warehouse in 1873 

 From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper 



Tc 



obacco metropolis 



Louisville had become the tobacco manufacturing 

 center of the state and its shipping operations had been 

 greatly extended. It was now the great marketing head- 

 quarters for Burley leaf. Prices brought at auction in 

 the city's numerous warehouses were sometimes week- 

 long sensations. In the 1880-1881 auction season, for 

 instance, there was a flurry of excitement when some 

 Burley leaf, designated as "colory cutting," brought $7 

 to $9 per hundred pounds for lugs (common ground 

 leaves), and $20 to $24 for the same weight of "fine leaf." 



World outlets had opened up for Kentucky tobacco. 

 In 1880, when the best farm land could be bought in 

 the Paducah or Western District fire-cured area for $25 

 to $30 an acre, that section was producing a variety of 

 types for domestic and foreign manufacturers. Included 

 were Dark and Red Shipping, sun- and air-cured filler 

 (for plug), African, and leaf for European state monopo- 

 lies, designated as "Regie" tobaccos. The range of prices 

 then was $2 for poor lugs to $40 per hundred pounds 

 for fine, light wrapper. The Green River district was 



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