United Cigar Stores was the largest chain of cigar

Cigar

A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...

 stores in the United States. Though initially specializing in cigars, it eventually sold many other items, such as Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

 watches and shoe tree

Shoe tree

A shoe tree is a device approximating the shape of a foot that is placed inside a shoe to preserve its shape, stop it from developing creases and thereby extend the life of the shoe....

s. The chain was founded in 1901. The chain represented the interests of the Consolidated Tobacco Company, the tobacco trust that controlled the American Tobacco Company

American Tobacco Company

The American Tobacco Company was a tobacco company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke through a merger between a number of U.S. tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter and Goodwin & Company...

 and others. In September 1903 a settlement was reached with the chain's competitors and all competition ended. By 1926 the chain had close to 3000 retail stores.

The company was controlled by Whelan-Schulte interests, but control passed to brothers George Kenan and Frederick Kenan Morrow in August 1929. The company also was in real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

. As the Depression deepened the real estate subsidiary accumulated huge losses, so in September 1932 the holding company declared bankruptcy. Before its bankruptcy it had 975 cigar stores and 219 drug stores, but most of its assets were in real estate. The chain recovered and had 1300 outlets in 1951.

United Cigar Stores became part of United Cigar-Whelan Stores Corp., then United Whelan Corp. In 1962, this was merged into Perfect Film & Chemical Corp.

Cadence Industries

Cadence Industries Corporation, formerly Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation, was an American conglomerate owned by Martin "Marty" S. Ackerman. From 1968 through 1986, Perfect/Cadence was the parent company of the publisher of Marvel Comics....

, a film-processing and mail-order seller of drug

Drug

A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...

s and vitamin

Vitamin

A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient in tiny amounts by an organism. In other words, an organic chemical compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. Thus, the term is conditional both on...

s.