It's Tuesday and I am still on my history learning mode...
It seems like the corn cob pipe has been around forever.
This year will mark the 150th anniversary of the first corn cob pipe being manufactured, which took place in Missouri.
The company that manufactured that first commercial cob pipe is still in operation today in Washington, Missouri.
Smoking pipe tobacco in a hand hewn corn cob pipe has surely been practiced for longer than 150 years. I suspect that in the Ozarks, where the pioneers were handy enough to use what was at hand rather than spending what little cash money they had, making a pipe from part of corn cob and a hollow reed would have been a natural thing to do.
I also suspect that during the Civil War, soldiers from different parts of the country would have seen the benefit of being able to quickly make their own pipe out of cobs and reeds when their wooden pipes were lost or destroyed in the rigors of war.
It was not long after the Civil War ended that the first commercial corn cob pipe was manufactured in Washington, Missouri in 1869. Washington is a Missouri River town about 50 miles west of St. Louis.
The manufactured corn cob pipe was developed by Henry Tibbe. Henry was a Dutch immigrant whose wood-turning shop and house had burned in Holland, so he brought his wife and son to America and settled in Missouri. He began making spinning wheels, furniture, wooden handles and such in his small shop in Washington.
According to an old story, a farmer came and asked if Henry could make a better corn cob pipe than the ones the farmer whittled with a knife. Henry set to the task, using his foot-powered lathe to smooth the outside of the cob. The farmer was so pleased that Henry decided there was a market for a better cob pipe.
Henry and his son, Anton, began manufacturing the pipes in their little shop in 1872, calling their company Henry Tibbe and Son. In 1878, Henry and Anton patented a process they had developed where they used a white plaster-of-Paris type compound to fill in the rough recesses on the outside of the cob. This process helped to fireproof the cob, hardened it, made it smoother and improved the pipe's looks.
Their improved cob pipes soon became so popular that they had to move to a larger factory building in Washington. Anton installed a steam boiler to power their lathes. The business continued to grow so much that in the early 1880s, they built their own larger factory on Front and Cedar streets in Washington. That factory, which was added onto a number of times over the years, is still in operation today.
In 1883, Henry and Anton patented their pipe. According to company records, the next year, Henry Tibbe and Son produced 1.8 million pipes. Henry Tibbe died in 1896 at the age of 77, leaving Anton in charge of the firm.
In 1907, Anton decided they needed a catchy name for their pipe. At that time, the best and most expensive pipes were made from a white clay from Turkey, called meerschaum. Anton wanted to emphasize the quality of his family’s cob pipe, decided to call it the 'Missouri Meerschaum' pipe, and he changed the name of the company to the Missouri Meerschaum Company. It is still called that today.
The company's pipes got even more popular after they displayed them at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Eventually, the company had 125 employees. In 1912, the company changed hands when it was purchased by Edmund Henry Otto. The Otto family owned and operated it for many decades and since then, it has changed hands several times.
The manufacturing of the Missouri Meerschaum pipe is an old-fashioned process with several steps. Nowadays, the company harvests its own corn that is a hybrid especially developed for them by the University of Missouri that produces large diameter cobs suitable for pipe-making. The cobs have to be dried for two years before use, unless there is a poor crop and they have to use propane heaters to speed up the drying process from last year's crop.
The cobs are then cut to sizes for the pipe bowls and the tobacco hole that forms the bowl is drilled. The cobs are turned on a lathe and then the coating that Henry developed is applied to the cob. Next, they are sanded to a smooth finish and a hole is drilled for the wood stem. The bowls are then varnished or lacquered, depending on which model pipe they are intended for.
As an extra addition for cosmetic purposes, the wood stems are 'printed' with a cob pattern. A metal ferrule is fixed to the stem and the area where the stem was inserted to the bowl is filled to make sure it is airtight. A plastic mouthpiece is then attached to the protruding end of the stem, a label applied to the bottom of the bowl, and another Missouri Meerschaum pipe is ready for sale.
Back in 1882, Missouri author Mark Twain was a passenger on fellow Missourian Lem Gray's riverboat when he lost his pipe while knocking out the ashes on the railing. Gray gave Twain one of his corn cob pipes to use, and Twain became a big fan of his native state's pipe.
Other famous folks from Missouri who have smoked a cob pipe were General of the Armies John J. Pershing, President Gerald Ford and another general of the armies who made it his trademark signature accessory. That man was Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and he designed his own deep-bowled, long-stemmed cob pipe and had the Missouri Meerschaum Company make his pipes to those specifications.
During the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s, when corn cob pipes were very popular, Missouri Meerschaum shipped around 25 million pipes each year. Pipe smoking decreased in popularity during the latter part of the 1900s, but today the company still produces well over a half-million pipes per year.
They are still very popular all over the world.
In today's world where every company needs a celebrity spokesperson, I think it would be fitting if the Missouri Meerschaum Company would hire a spokesman for their company, someone who has been smoking a corn cob pipe since 1929… Popeye the Sailor Man.
Gotta go find my spinach... Later.
Nana
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