Textile Manufacturing

Building One, looking southwest, 1950s. Building Two, Warehouse A+B, and Building One, 1901, moving from foreground to background (Courtesy Duke Archives) The history of Blackwell's Durham Tobacco (later American Tobacco) and the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. are inextricably mingled. In 1887, the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. originated in a...

A textile factory intimately linked with tobacco production, the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company started in the Old Bull Building at American Tobacco before Julian Carr constructed the large plant on East Main Street to cut and sew bags for loose leaf tobacco. The company later branched into hosiery production and paper products - cartons and packaging for Lucky Strike cigarettes were made here. After outlasting all of of its early textile contemporaries, Golden Belt closed in 1994. In 2008, the property was redeveloped as s a mixture of residences, artists studios, office space, and retail.

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.

Under construction, 1901. (Courtesy Duke Archives) The history of Blackwell's Durham Tobacco (later American Tobacco) and the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. are inextricably mingled. In 1887, the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. originated in a portion of the Bull Durham Tobacco Factory (the white building at the northern extent of the American Tobacco...

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 6, 1950s (Courtesy Herald-Sun) The history of Blackwell's Durham Tobacco (later American Tobacco) and the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. are inextricably mingled. In 1887, the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. originated in a portion of the Bull Durham Tobacco Factory (the white building at the northern extent of the American Tobacco complex)...

951-953 East Main, September 2007 951-953 was built in the mid-1920s; like many of the structures to its west, it replaced earlier frame mercantile structures. 1928 951 Brown Brothers and Holt 953 Edgemont Market 1933 953 Edgemont Market 1937 Vacant 1944 951: JE Gunter Hosiery Mill 953: Scott and Roberts dry cleaners 1952

Durham's first African American owned and operated textile operation, visited and praised by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, then home to the Royal Knights of King David fraternal order.

Orange Factory was established in 1852 (so named because it was the first factory in then-Orange County,) by John Douglas and William Lipscomb on the banks of the Little River. The Little River was one of the three rivers of now-North Durham County (the Eno, the Flat, and the Little) that drew settlement and the establishment of industry that utilized the water power that the rivers provided. Much of this settlement came east from Hillsborough, the county seat.

Looking southeast from East Pettigrew St., 1895. (Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection / scanned by Digital Durham) The oldest still-extant (at least partially) hosiery mill complex in Durham is the Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company complex at East Pettigrew and South Driver Sts. The Durham Cotton and Manufacturing Company was...