{"nrhp_refnum":"09000602","name":"Winston-Salem Tobacco Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Bounded by Chestnut St. on the W., 5th and 7th Sts. on the N., Linden St. on the E., and 4th and Fogle Sts. on the S.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Winston-Salem","county":"Forsyth County","state":"NC","lat":35.200614210000055,"lon":-80.24885271319808,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2009-08-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Commerce","Black","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district of about thirty-one acres in the eastern part of downtown Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, made up of tobacco factories, warehouses, power facilities, commercial buildings, railroad bridges and rights-of-way, and Durax granite street pavement. It contains the largest extant industrial section in downtown Winston-Salem.","why_significant":"The district is significant for its association with the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and the early twentieth-century tobacco industry, for its link to the African American business and commercial district that grew around the factory complex, and for its connection to African American labor history, including 1940s strikes led by Local 22. The nomination also cites the transportation resources, such as railroad bridges and Durax pavement, as evidence of the district's industrial function.","narrative":"Winston-Salem's eastern downtown holds the largest surviving industrial section of a tobacco manufacturing center that once covered roughly ten square blocks. The district includes R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company factories and warehouses built mainly in the 1910s through 1930s, such as Factory 60 from 1923 and Factory 90 from 1926, along with the S. J. Nissen Building of 1894-95 and the Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Company buildings. It is regarded as important because it preserves the physical link between the tobacco factories and the African American commercial district that developed around them, a district much of which was lost to urban renewal from the late 1950s. Elevated railroad bridges, a creek emerging from beneath Patterson Avenue, and granite Durax pavement from about 1915 also record how goods moved through the area. The district's labor significance centers on the 1940s strikes at the Reynolds plant, led by Local 22 of the CIO-affiliated Tobacco Workers Organizing Committee.","period_of_significance":"1890-1959","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Commercial Style","criteria":["A"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:40.755001-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/88/7202/47720288/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/09000602.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000602/161a397f15-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000602/161a397f15-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Warren LeMay from Cullowhee, NC, United States","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winston-Salem_Tobacco_Historic_District,_Winston-Salem,_NC_(49036264756).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Warren LeMay from Cullowhee, NC, United States</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winston-Salem_Tobacco_Historic_District,_Winston-Salem,_NC_(49036264756).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720288","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston-Salem_Tobacco_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21016358"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/forsyth-county/winston-salem-tobacco-historic-district-09000602/"}