Belk Architecture

A dye house built for the Golden Belt Manufacturing company in 1927, Building Five became part of Hillcrest Hosiery Mills in the 1940s before reverting to GBMC. It was restored and renovated by Scientific Properties as office space in 2008-2009.

Building Two at Golden Belt was the original bag factory - where the sheeting from the Cotton Mill (Building One) was cut and sewn into bags for Bull Durham tobacco. As of 2012, it is a repurposed mixed-use building housing retail, office, and event space.

Erwin Mill No. 1 and office building, early 20th century (Courtesy John Schelp) Julian Carr's success with Durham's first textile manufacturing plant, the Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company, which returned 20-30% net profit in its first 6 years, showed the viability of the industry in Durham and, more broadly, the south. The Dukes, who had...

Venable Warehouse, looking east on East Pettigrew Street, likely 1920s-1930. (Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Wyatt Dixon Collection) Much of the historical information in this post derives from the National Register nominations for the Venable buildings

The birth of the tobacco industry in Durham started with a handful of people -none of whom were named Blackwell, Watts, Duke, or Carr - who saw the new 'town' of Durham Station as a place of opportunity. The first entrepreneur to see Durham Station as a central transportation hub that could pull tobacco from the counties around it for manufacture...

The Durham Hosiery Company had its beginnings in 1894, when it was organized by George Graham, and began operations in a building on Church St., and subsequently, Morris St. Later that same year, Julian Carr and John W. Smith organized the Golden Belt Hosiery Company (a different entity than the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co.) and located the new company at Five Points, at "the southward intersection of Main and Chapel Hill Sts." Given that the current buildings at that location were built during the 1920s, this building is likely gone.

American Tobacco / Liggett warehouses, built in Durham's unique style, that became Durham's first modern adaptive reuse project.