The Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company – location

Ian Wolfe has Flikr pages incorporating material relating to the precise site of the Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company. Ian has kindly given permission to show this on our website.

This aerial photo is probably pre-WW2, (Source 1). Ian has overlaid these Kowloon roads:
Yellow lines – Nathan Road,
Orange lines – Waterloo Road,
Green line – Soy Street,
Pink line – Dundas Street,
Red line – Jordan Road,
Aquamarine line – Wylie Road

Ingenohl - 2 HK cigar factory Mike T

Here’s an updated version of the photo Ian recently sent with additional marking and a insetted photo labelled, Cigar Factory Yaumati:

(1) the piece of land indicated by WHITE boundary lines was the plot once occupied by the tobacco factory
(2) exact location of boundary line A-B is uncertain since I have cast doubt about when the plot of land on the left of line A-B became the premises of Kwing Wah Hospital
(3) the yellow colored rectangle is the cigarette factory that I have uploaded the photo of it to flickr
(4) I tried to correlate the photo – Cigar Factory Yaumati 1910 with the above-mentioned aerial street photo, but still cannot confirm the exact location of the ‘early’ 1910 factory
(5) Yet I am inclined to say the 1910 photo couldn’t have been taken with the camera facing in the direction of the GREEN arrow, due to the hill ridge shape appearing in the photo and the proximity of the hill, now removed, was close to Waterloo Road. The photographer of the 1910 photo may have faced in the direction of the RED arrow, and taken the picture when Orient Tobacco Manufactory multi-storey brick and concrete factory was not yet built
(6) In the 1910 photo, the foreground where the cows are eating grass cannot be Nathan Road, as the latter was built and opened to the public before 1906

Orient Tobacco Manufactory - pre-WW2 photo with updated lines overlaid Ian Wolfe

Sources:

  1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/50066665@N03/4853344227/

Related Indhhk articles:

  1. The Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company – updated information
  2. Carl Ingenohl – owner of the Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company
  3. El Oriente – link to the Orient Tobacco Manufactory Company and Carl Ingenohl
  4. Orient Tobacco Manufactory – many questions, any answers? – initial research
  5. C Ingenohl – company and man – HK cigars
  6. C Ingenohl (Hongkong Tobacco Manufactory ?) – cigar factory in Manila

When and how did the piece of land, once belonged to the tobacco manufactory, split and a part become Kwong Wah Hospital ?

Thomas Ngan: The factory might have taken up the whole lot from the SW corner of Waterloo & Nathan up the NE corner of modern day Soy Street/Kwong Wah Street/Yim Po Fong Street. I guess there ought to be something in GRO or Lands Department by checking out the deeds of the buildings in the area for clue.

Ingenohl - 2 HK cigar factory Mike T

Sources:

  1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/50066665@N03/4853344227/

5 Comments

  • Donald Sun

    There is still a street called “Tong Fong Street”. In English it means “Oriental Street”.
    The street is between Waterloo Road, and Pitt Street, just one street behind Nathan Road.

  • George Yau

    Ping line should be Soy Street
    Green Line should be Shan Tung Street

  • Louis Yuen

    Our family was the 1st landlord at No. 1 Fa Yuen Street. Yet I heard little about this region since our family was no longer the landlord after World War II.

  • Robert Carroll

    Well done for a full history of the company
    Please iinform me where is Tabaquiera Filipina shop now or is it online shopping ?

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