American Tobacco Company Manufacturing Plant

Occupying one long block in downtown Durham, this tobacco manufacturing complex shows about eighty years of industrial building in a single streetscape. At its north end stands the Italianate W. T. Blackwell & Company Factory, begun in 1874 for the makers of Bull Durham smoking tobacco. Toward the middle are warehouses and factories from about 1900 to 1907, built by the American Tobacco Company in slow-burn construction with Romanesque Revival brickwork such as dogtooth courses, machicolation and corbelling. The south end holds large Moderne factories from 1939, 1946 and 1953-54, with concrete frames and brick curtain walls. A power plant with a Lucky Strike chimney and a painted water tower add to the skyline. The complex records the growth of Blackwell and Company, the American Tobacco Company trust formed by James B. Duke, and the reorganized company after 1911. Fourteen resources contribute to the district, which is now vacant.