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| Gilberto Leon at his cigar-rolling station in 2002.
|
Leon and two assistants made about 600 cigars each
day, and
prices ranged from about $3 to $6. |
|
|
|
| Gilberto Leon at his cigar-rolling station in 2002.
|
Leon and two assistants made about 600 cigars each
day, and
prices ranged from about $3 to $6. |
 |
 |
| Leon learned to roll cigars as a
teenager in the factories of his native Havana. “We were poor. You had to learn to do something, and that’s what I learned,” Leon said in a 2002 interview. |
Hand-rolled cigars on a wooden press.
Leon opened his 6th Street shop in Los Angeles in 1979. The small, crowded space had tobacco leaves stacked on old desks, a wooden counter and a tight work space where he rolled cigars. |
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| A fresh bundle of handmade cigars
at Leon's shop in Los Angeles. He bought tobacco grown from Cuban seeds in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Central America. |
Gilberto Leon fires up one of his creations for
a friend.
|
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| Leon closes his 6th Street shop for the day in
2002, carrying a machete he kept for protection but never had to use. |
Gilberto Leon, 87, died at Good Samaritan Hospital
in Los
Angeles, a family member said. |