{"nrhp_refnum":"78001952","name":"Smith, W. F., and Sons Leaf House and Brown Brothers Company Building","other_names":["Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Co."],"category":"building","location":{"address":"4th St. between Patterson and Linden","address_restricted":false,"city":"Winston-Salem","county":"Forsyth County","state":"NC","lat":36.09963364600003,"lon":-80.24080562499995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-02-23","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two late nineteenth-century brick tobacco buildings on both sides of Fourth Street between Patterson and Linden Streets in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina. The older Smith building dates to about 1890, and the Brown Brothers building was erected between 1890 and 1895.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the buildings as among the few remaining reminders of Winston-Salem's late nineteenth-century tobacco industry. They housed leaf dealing, prizery, storage and processing operations over several decades. They are also described as visual landmarks in the city's skyline and character.","narrative":"Two brick tobacco buildings face each other across Fourth Street in Winston-Salem, linked by a metal catwalk. The older, built about 1890 for W. F. Smith and Sons Leaf House, is four and a half stories with a stepped gable facade and segmental-arch windows. The second, put up between 1890 and 1895 for Brown Brothers Company, rises five stories under a mansard roof with dormers. Over the years the buildings held leaf storage, cigarette manufacturing, prizery work where tobacco was dried and packed into hogsheads, and later redrying, grading and stemming. By 1907 the American Tobacco Company owned both, and in the 1920s Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Company took them over. The nomination values them as rare surviving reminders of the city's early tobacco industry and as prominent landmarks in its streetscape. At the time of the nomination they were for sale and faced possible demolition without a new use.","period_of_significance":"1890-1895","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Described as for sale, with probable demolition unless an adaptive use is found; a local wood products firm, then a tenant, was considering buying. Piedmont Leaf had moved to Tenth Street by 1976.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:57.946616-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/28/7202/47720228/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/78001952.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78001952/980f19493b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78001952/980f19493b-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smith_and_Brown_tobacco_complex.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smith_and_Brown_tobacco_complex.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720228","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._F._Smith_and_Sons_Leaf_House_and_Brown_Brothers_Company_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20679834"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/forsyth-county/smith-w-f-and-sons-leaf-house-and-brown-brothers-company-building-78001952/"}