N&W in 1908 -- Cigarettes

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
May 15, 1908

IN CITY AND COAL FIELD
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Big Shipment of Cigarettes
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    There passed through Bluefield a few days ago, a big shipment of cigarettes, perhaps the biggest shipment of its kind that was ever handled through here.  There were four car loads, and each of them contained a hundred cases, making four hundred cases in all, and in the four hundred cases, there were a total of twenty million cigarettes.  The shipment was destined for Tacoma, Washington, where it will be transferred to the battleship Minnesota.  It is due to arrive there on June 2nd.  It is thought that the cigarettes will be distributed by the Minnesota among the other ships of the squadron, which is now at San Francisco.
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[At least as late as the mid 1950s the N&W was handling cigarettes out of Durham, NC in box cars.  It was about then that I was at a derailment north of Durham involving a box car of cigarettes, and I inquired who the person was who was hovering over the box car with its damaged cases of cigarettes, and I was told that he was from the Federal and/or state tax department.  I was told that he was there to witness the destruction of the cigarettes because the shipper had already paid the not- inconsequential taxes on the cigarettes before they were shipped and wanted a refund on the destroyed cigarettes.]

Gordon Hamilton
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