{"nrhp_refnum":"79003328","name":"Edenton Peanut Factory","other_names":["Edenton Peanut Company"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"E. Church St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Edenton","county":"Chowan County","state":"NC","lat":36.06099177300007,"lon":-76.51827616299994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-09-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A five-story brick peanut processing factory with a six-story elevator tower and wooden warehouses, built about 1909 on a 4.9-acre site beside the railroad on the eastern edge of Edenton, Chowan County, North Carolina.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as the first peanut factory in Edenton and an important part of the local peanut industry that dominated the early twentieth-century economy. It is also cited as one of the finest examples of factory construction in eastern North Carolina, with bold, skillful brickwork and a dramatic form that made it a local landmark.","narrative":"Rising five stories above the eastern edge of Edenton, this brick factory was built about 1909 to process peanuts. It sits beside the railroad and Hertford Road on a 4.9-acre site, with a six-story elevator tower, an engine room, an office wing and wooden warehouses. Local founders from the Wood and Shepard families established it, and at its height it produced 1,400 to 1,500 100-pound bags a day with about 100 workers. It was the first factory of its kind in Edenton, in a town that became one of the leading peanut markets in North Carolina. Changes in federal purchasing rules after World War II strained the company, and it was sold in 1957, then again in 1958 and 1975. The building is valued for its role in the region's agricultural industry and for its bold brickwork and tall, functional form. By the time of listing it stood vacant, with broken windows and failing platforms, though the structure remained sound.","period_of_significance":"1900- (specific date ca. 1909)","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Vacant and deteriorated at the time of nomination; structurally sound but with cracking walls, broken windows, collapsing loading platforms and a badly deteriorated Warehouse No. 1. Warehouse No. 3 showed signs of use.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:58.367752-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/7/7196/47719607/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/79003328.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47719607","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenton_Peanut_Factory","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18149738"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/chowan-county/edenton-peanut-factory-79003328/"}