A college degree wasn't in the future for Reinhold Finck, Bill Jr.'s great-grandfather, who came to San Antonio in 1852 -- 16 years after David Crockett, Col. William Barrett Travis and Col. James Bowie died with their troops defending the Alamo against the Mexican army. The Civil War to start nine years later.

Reinhold Finck started a German-language newspaper, but fled the city for New Orleans in the 1860s at the height at a cholera epidemic. Reinhold's son, Henry William Finck, returned to San Antonio for health reasons after managing cigar factories in New Orleans and New York. He started Finck Cigar Co. in 1893 on the lower floor of the family's modest two-story home.

"My grandfather learned the cigar-making trade in New Orleans," Bill Sr. says. "There were cigar companies in just about every town in the country back then." Indeed, at the time Finck Cigar came into existence, cigarettes had not yet become popular; four out of five American males, and more than a few women smoked cigars.

"When he opened Finck Cigar he lived upstairs and made cigars downstairs," Bill Sr. says. "He'd make about 300 cigars a day, then pack them up and ride around the city on his bicycle and sell them on the streets. At the time, there were 16 cigar companies in San Antonio. All you needed was a table, chaveta and a few pounds of tobacco. None of the other companies are around anymore."

Henry William Finck's signature cigar was the Finck Cheroot, which he sold in a wooden box in quantities of 250 for $2. "He obviously was very bright and very diligent," Bill Sr. says. "They got to be the biggest cigar factory west of the Mississippi."

Henry William's three sons, including Bill Sr.'s father, Edward Reinhold, worked in the factory. Bill Sr.'s father was responsible for buying the tobaccos that were hand rolled into Finck Cigars. "Daddy would go to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Connecticut to buy tobacco," Bill Sr. says. "Back then, trips like that were a big deal. To buy your own tobacco, and Daddy was good at that, you got on the train to New Orleans and then you got on a boat to wherever. Sometimes he'd be gone for months, but he always brought back good tobacco."

The company prospered during the middle of the century, introducing machine-made cigars in the 1940s to save labor costs.

Like many other cigar companies, Finck Cigar reached a watershed when President Kennedy stopped commerce between Cuba and the United States in 1961. "The Cuban embargo had a big effect on us," Bill Sr. offers. "At the time, we used the best Cuban filler. Cuban tobacco that is aged right is really, really good."

The embargo forced the company to find other sources of tobacco, quickly -- primarily in Jamaica. Later Finck Cigar switched its blends to tobacco from the Dominican Republic and Honduras.

"It was a big mess,"

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