The United States Army began stationing troops at the Presidio of San Francisco beginning 1846. The John Bollman Company advertised their Imperiales Cigarettes with an October 1908 newspaper ad picturing a stern looking officer who should have had a smile on his face. All twelve coast artillery batteries had just successfully finished a two week long maneuver. Gunners had used the massive rifles hidden in the sand dunes around the entrance of San Francisco Bay to practiced their marksmanship. The roar and concussion of these big 10-inch cannons hurling 618 pound shells at a towed moving target, must have felt like the 1906 earthquake all over again. John Bollman began making his Russian style cigarettes in San Francisco about the time of the California Gold Rush. The Imperiales ad pictured below states that the cigarette was sold regionally to the 800,000 men living west of the Rocky Mountains.