The history of the American Snuff Company can be traced back to 1782 with the founding of Garrett Scotch Snuff, one of the earliest producers of the smokeless tobacco product in the country and one of the first 10 patents to be issued in America. In 1900, Garrett Scotch merged with several major tobacco empires of the time, to form the first iteration of the American Snuff Company. This merger, however, created a monopoly on tobacco products and was divided into three separate companies in 1907.

The new American Snuff Company, under the management of Martin J. Condon Sr., a former Mayor of Knoxville, constructed the Memphis warehouse in 1912 to house the production, packaging, and distribution of their snuff products. Condon chose the Memphis location due to its proximity to a high-quality dark-fired tobacco farming region known as the ‘Black Patch,’ as well as its central location and well-connected rail hub.

The American Snuff Company prospered under Condon’s direction through the 1930s. The Wall Street Journal called the American Snuff Company “depression proof,” after a decision to broaden product lines to include sweet-flavored snuff resulted in higher sales than the company’s pre-depression years. During this period the Memphis plant was featured heavily in the company’s advertising campaigns as well as those for the city of Memphis.

During the 1940s and 1950s, women comprised a majority of the American Snuff staff, many of which were members of the growing labor union movements of the time, such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The Memphis warehouse was the site of a major union strike in 1950 when 324 workers staged a 185-day strike in demand of better pay and working conditions. The walkout and strike resulted in workers getting a $.05 raise, dues check-offs from paychecks, and a new recreation room in the warehouse.

By 1955, the American Snuff Company was the second largest snuff manufacturer in the US employing 500 at the Memphis plant. Condon was eventually succeeded by James E. Harwood, a long-time employee of the Nashville factory. In 1965, the firm’s name was changed to Conwood Corp., a combination of his and the former president’s last name. Reynolds American acquired the Conwood Corp in mid-2006 for $3.5 billion in cash. It now generates nearly 7% of Reynolds American’s annual revenue. They used the Keel Avenue facility until 2012 when they sold the property.

Chattanooga’s Tivoli Theatre, “the Jewel of the South,” opened its doors to the public in 1921 as a state-of-the-art performance space. Built as a smaller-scale replica of Chicago’s Tivoli Theatre, this 1,750-seat entertainment hall was the first public building in the south, and one of the first in the country, to install an air conditioning system. After decades of success, the theatre’s performance steadily declined through the 1950s as more modern movie theatres started to open in the city. The city took control of the building in early 1961 and reopened the space in 1963 as Chattanooga’s new Cultural Center.

The transformation into a Cultural Center was hailed as the beginning of revitalization in Chattanooga’s downtown area and the space was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. In 2015, the city of Chattanooga created the nonprofit Tivoli Theatre Foundation to operate the venue and to lead fundraising efforts to repair the building. The theatre was closed in 2022 to begin the full restoration.

The Trigg-Smartt building adjacent to the Tivoli Theatre was built in 1889 as a commercial space. The building was named after the original tenants, Trigg Dobbs & Company, a wholesale grocer, and Smartt Brothers & Company, a wholesale shoes and boots company. Trigg-Smartt was owned and operated by these two companies until 1911 when James Trigg sold his portion of the building to James Smartt and vacated the building. Smartt Brothers & Company continued to operate in the building until the death of Smartt in 1913. After his death, the business vacated the building and welcomed a variety of commercial tenants through the years. One of those tenants included the Fowler Brothers Furniture Company, the largest furniture company in Tennessee, which occupied the building until 1985. The Trigg-Smartt building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.