{"nrhp_refnum":"12001088","name":"Wright's Automatic Machinery Company","other_names":["Wright Machinery Company","Wright's Automatic Tobacco Packing Machine Company"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"915 Holloway St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Durham","county":"Durham County","state":"NC","lat":36.011175467000044,"lon":-79.99320226499998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2012-12-26","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Military","Industry"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story masonry industrial plant at 915 Holloway Street, at the northwest corner of Holloway and Calvin streets, several blocks east of downtown Durham, North Carolina. The building was erected in 1942 by the Defense Plant Corporation for Wright's Automatic Machinery Company.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the plant is significant for its role in the federal-industry collaboration that supplied the military in World War II, when the company built gunfire control equipment for the U.S. Navy as a subcontractor. It also documents the company's wartime expansion and training of a largely new workforce, and its postwar military and aerospace work under Sperry Rand.","narrative":"Built in 1942 at the northwest corner of Holloway and Calvin streets in Durham, this two-story masonry plant was erected by the Defense Plant Corporation for Wright's Automatic Machinery Company. Designed by Atwood and Weeks and built by C. C. Woods Construction Company, the building cost $462,415.45 and covered about 106,000 square feet. Its open interior, with two workspaces flanking a central service core, allowed layouts to change with wartime needs. Working as a subcontractor to Ford Instrument Company, a Sperry Corporation subsidiary, the company produced gunfire control equipment for the U.S. Navy here. Wartime employment reached 1,200 workers, many of them women hired for the first time, and the plant received the Army-Navy E award in 1943. After the war, the plant continued producing precision components for military programs and, from 1960, for NASA spacecraft. The building is regarded as a rare surviving World War II industrial structure in Durham.","period_of_significance":"1942-1962","architect_builder":"Atwood and Weeks (architect); C. C. Woods Construction Company (builder)","architectural_style":"Modern Movement","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 17:11:42.516616-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/84/7200/47720084/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/12001088.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12001088/36bd36653a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/12001088/36bd36653a-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Monumenteer2014camper","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wright%27s_Machinery_Company_historic_building,_Durham,_North_Carolina,_2014.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Monumenteer2014camper</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wright%27s_Machinery_Company_historic_building,_Durham,_North_Carolina,_2014.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720084","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright%27s_Automatic_Machinery_Company","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21016364"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/durham-county/wrights-automatic-machinery-company-12001088/"}