The BLOCH BROTHERS TOBACCO PLANT, Water St. between 39th and 41st Sts., manufactures Mail Pouch chewing tobacco. Nearly 1,000 persons are employed in the long, red brick factory buildings and modern, brick office building which occupy two blocks along the water front. The tobacco used in Mail Pouch, which is processed and cut into ribbons by machine, comes from Ohio, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Annual production is approximately 100,000,000 packages. The company originator of ribbon-cut type of tobacco, was formed in 1879 by S.S. and Aaron Bloch and was the first to buy leaf tobacco for the express purpose of manufacturing cut chewing tobacco.
Mail Pouch, especially during the development of oil and gas in West Virginia, was generally used by drillers and their helpers. It is said that when Kansas and Oklahoma oil fields opened later, and experienced workmen went West, a package of Mail Pouch--indicating a West Virginian--was as good as a letter of introduction in getting a job. -West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State, 1941, pg. 292-293.
The company factory is still located in Wheeling at the location indicated in the Guide. Mail Pouch became famous due in large part to the "Mail Pouch barn" which advertised the product in a wide area in the midwest. Their production and workforce is much smaller than it used to be due to lowing of demand for their products. The company has been sold a few times first in 1969 to the General Cigar and Tobacco Company which became part of Culbro in 1978. It was then acquired by Helme Tobacco Company in 1983 and now is under the name of Swisher International