Missouri Meerschaum

Missouri Meerschaum is the world's oldest and largest company making pipes from corncobs. Active since 1869 in the town of Washington in the U.S. state of Missouri, the brand has earned the town the title "Corncob Pipe Capital of the World." Known for its lightness, the corncob pipe has been one of the most familiar symbols of American pipe culture for over a century and a half; Missouri Meerschaum is foremost among the enterprises that have carried this tradition into the present at an industrial scale.

Founding and Henry Tibbe

The company's origin traces to Henry Tibbe (1819-1897), a carpenter from Enschede, in the Netherlands. After a great fire in the city destroyed his workshop, Tibbe emigrated to America with his family in the early 1860s and opened a woodworking shop in Washington. As the story goes, a farmer who had carved himself a pipe from a corncob asked Tibbe to do the same on his lathe; the resulting pipes proved so popular that Tibbe soon devoted himself entirely to pipe production. According to records, the farmer who placed this first order was named John Schranke; while the company cites 1869 as its founding year, some researchers date the episode to 1872.

The real innovation that set Tibbe's pipes apart from others was a surface treatment he developed with a chemist friend: a plaster-based coating applied to the cob's outer surface, which smoothed the porous surface, filled out the shell, and made the pipe durable. The method was patented on July 6, 1878. Production moved to a larger, steam-powered building in 1877, and in 1883 Tibbe and his son Anton applied to register the trademark.

Origin of the Name and Ownership

The brand's name is a deliberate reference to one of the pipe world's most prestigious materials. With their lightness, porous texture, and cool smoke, corncob pipes were likened to costly meerschaum pipes and came to be known colloquially as "Missouri meerschaum." Father and son Tibbe exhibited their pipes under this name in 1887, and in 1907 the company formally changed its title from H. Tibbe & Son Co. to Missouri Meerschaum Company. The family left management in 1912, and the company passed to Edmund Henry Otto; the business remained in the Otto family's hands for generations.

The corncob pipe had become an industry in Franklin County: in 1925 about a dozen factories were operating in the county alone, most of them in Washington. In the same town, the Buescher Corn Cob Pipe Company, formalized by George Buescher Jr. in 1941, was by the 1960s making pipes from hickory and cherry wood in addition to corncob. All of these companies eventually closed; only Missouri Meerschaum survives today.

The Corncob Pipe's Place in the Pipe World

The main reasons for the corncob pipe's widespread acceptance are usually listed as follows:

• Being naturally porous, the cob absorbs moisture, offering a dry, cool smoke.

• Unlike briar, it does not require a long break-in period; from the very first bowl it gives a neutral smoke that does not mix into the tobacco's flavor.

• Thanks to this neutrality, it is accepted among tobacco experts and blenders as a tasting tool.

Ordinary field corn is not used for the bowls. The company plants a white hybrid "pipe corn," developed at the University of Missouri, that yields large, thick cobs; the breeding program began in 1946 under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Zuber of the university. Harvested cobs are dried for roughly two years before being processed. For day-to-day details, see the corncob pipe care guide article.

Models and Iconic Names

The image most identified with the brand is General Douglas MacArthur's enormous corncob pipe. As the story goes, the general sent the factory drawings showing the dimensions he wanted; the resulting long-stemmed, deep-bowled shape entered the catalog under the name "MacArthur 5-Star." The habit of branding a ring onto the stem of every new pipe MacArthur received continues in the model produced today. The model's rise to fame is tied to 1951, and the flood of orders that hit the factory after President Truman relieved the general of his command.

The company today has more than thirty models; among the best known are the plain Legend, the filtered, large-bowled Country Gentleman, the Diplomat, the Freehand, and the Huck Finn. Mark Twain and the cartoon character Popeye are also names identified with the corncob pipe; other figures associated with the pipe are covered in the famous pipe smokers article.

Today

Missouri Meerschaum continues production in its historic factory building on the bank of the Missouri River in Washington; the oldest section of the building dates to 1884. With a staff of close to forty, the company is reported to produce roughly three thousand pipes a day, close to seven hundred thousand a year. This figure is well below the prewar period: in the early 1940s the factory employed 125 people, and production was measured in the millions. The building also houses a small company museum containing pieces from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair exhibit and old production ledgers.