Home > Galleries > When The Dust Settles | PORTFOLIO

When The Dust Settles | PORTFOLIO (10 images)

For more than a century, the sweet, unmistakable scent of cured tobacco filled the streets of downtown Durham, North Carolina -- once renowned the world around for its brightleaf blend and innovative cigarette production. Massive ornate brick factories towered over the rail lines running through town, marvelous castles of industry that employed several generations of North Carolinians.

By the late 1990s, the tobacco industry had gone bust in Durham and the The Liggett &...
more »
  • Board Room, New Cigarette Factory, First Floor, 2006.A large photograph of the New Cigarette Factory is reflected in a mirror hanging in the wood-paneled board room on the first floor of the factory. In the 1940s, Liggett & Myers created an annual promotional publication titled Tobaccoland. One entry reads, "Regularly employed by Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company for handling leaf tobacco and in the manufacture of Chesterfields, are more than thirteen thousand men and women, whose length of service averages better than ten years. Each day a Chesterfield messenger goes to Durham's new Federal Building with a certified check for approximately a quarter of a million dollars. This check is to purchase the revenue stamps needed for a single day's output at the Durham facilities."

  • Storage Bin Controls, Cobb Warehouse, Second Floor, 2006."If you worked for Liggett or American and you walked into a grocery store or any business, you were treated with respect," said former employee Joe Cohn. "You made good money. You kept the city running."

  • Casing Room, New Cigarette Factory, Sixth Floor, 2008.Each brand of Liggett & Myers cigarettes was designed to have a unique flavor. To achieve this variety, a liquid mixture of chemicals and extracts was combined with sugar and humectant, which retains moisture and keeps tobacco fresh. All of this was mixed together in a large kettle, near the center of the frame, before being piped out and sprayed onto a particular tobacco blend.

  • Conveyor System, O'Brien Warehouse, Second Floor, 2006.After tobacco was conditioned and stored in bulkers on the second floor of O'Brien, it was loaded onto a system of conveyer belts, carried over Main Street and lifted to the sixth floor of the New Cigarette Factory for casing and cutting. Although Bull Durham Tobacco Company was the first major tobacco company in Durham, with around 900 employees in 1884, it was James B. Duke's focus on innovative methods of cigarette production that quickly propelled Washington Duke & Sons (later the American Tobacco Company) to become the world wide leader in cigarette manufacturing at the turn of the 20th century.

  • F House, Old Cigarette Factory, Rooftop, 2005.F House was home to the pipe shop and other craft services, located in the middle of the Old Cigarette Factory complex. During renovations, F House was demolished and a semi-enclosed courtyard with a swimming pool and green spaces was built in its place. The original U-shaped structure of Old Cigarette Factory, also known as Duke Factory, was once four stories tall before being "decapitated" in 1948 for a variety of reasons that make little sense today. Duke Factory was built in 1884 by tobacco baron Washington Duke--his first of many ornate brick tobacco factories in Durham.

  • Scale, O'Brien Warehouse, Second Floor, 2006.James B. Duke's mighty American Tobacco Company finished building the O'Brien Warehouse in 1899, the same year they acquired the smaller, St. Louis based, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. Twenty-two years later the U.S. Supreme Court found the American Tobacco Company guilty of being business monopoly, a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. As a result of that ruling, American Tobacco Company was divided into four companies: the American Tobacco Company, R.J. Reynolds, P. Lorillard and Liggett & Myers Tobacco..

  • North Stairwell, Cobb Warehouse, 2006.Once the climate controls inside Cobb Warehouse were turned off, the paint quickly began to peel from the walls inside the four-story structure. The $150 million dollar historical restoration and renovation of the Liggett & Myers factory complex by Blue Devil Partners is considered to be one of the most ambitious in North Carolina history. The L&M factory complex is listed on National Registry of historical places and Blue Devil Partners has worked closely with the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service to ensure the expansion project will meet their specific guidelines for a true restoration project.

  • Steel Patch, Cobb Warehouse, Third Floor, 2006.Around 3,000 female employees of Liggett & Myers, nearly all African-American, would strip the stems from tobacco leaves by hand inside Cobb Warehouse. It was a seasonal task, starting in September and continuing into the next year. They would wear blue dress uniforms, and when the whistle blew, would file out and walk two by two up the sidewalk to the Five Points neighborhood. "The sidewalk just about turned blue," said former employee Charlie Bock. In the second half of the 20th century, the task was automated and stems would be saved to be incorporated into the final smoking tobacco blend.

  • Storage Tanks, Outside Old Cigarette Factory, 2007

  • The Turkish Unit, O'Brien Warehouse, Second Floor, 2006.The Turkish Unit was a large vacuum chamber designed to moisten and heat tobacco, specifically the small-leaved Turkish variety, by forcing steam through the leaves and opening their pores to prepare it for production. Turkish tobacco, or Oriental tobacco, was grown in Turkey and the Near East, then shipped to Durham where U.S. Customs agents inspected each batch. This vacuum unit was built by Chicago Bridge & Iron Works in 1939.