Western Australia once had a thriving tobacco industry. But in 1960, when smoking was at its height, the local cigarette factory abruptly closed.
By the early 1950s Michelides was the third-largest cigarette manufacturer in the country and hugely significant to the state.
"There weren't many Western Australian industries that were vertically integrated, although they didn't use that word then — he grew the product, manufactured it and sold it," Dr Yiannakis said. "He had a number of shops and the biggest one was on the corner of Forrest Place and Wellington Street, where the Myer building is now."
Production had peaked during the war, when the company was supplying cigarettes to the army for soldiers shipping out of Western Australia, and again in the early 50s, when the company was making six million cigarette papers a year.The introduction of imported, filter-tip cigarettes, backed by international companies with huge advertising budgets competing for market share, meant that by 1956, customers had deserted the local company.
"When you speak to older people who remember the Michelides tobacco and smoked it, it wasn't the most pleasant."
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