Lake City Tobacco Markets

Front: Farmers in this vicinity began growing tobacco in the early 1890s, and by 1895 Lake City opened its first tobacco market and warehouse. It built its second warehouse by 1903, a third by 1909, and two more by 1917. In the heart of the S.C. “tobacco belt,” this was the second-largest market in the state for most of the 20th century, and one of the largest in the five states producing flue-cured tobacco. Reverse: This building was built in 1912 for the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland to redry and process tobacco after it was sold and before it was aged in warehouses. Imperial bought and processed flue-cured tobacco in five Southern states for most of the 20th century. This plant, once the largest redrying plant in S.C., was sold to T.S. Ragsdale & Co. of Lake City in 1960 and closed in 1971.