Curing Barn

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Curing Barn
Pack House
First Factory
Third Factory
The Homestead
Tobacco

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pulling, Stringing and Barning

The curing barn at Duke Homestead is an 1870 log structure that was brought to the property from a farm in nearby Bahama, North Carolina.  Exemplary of North Carolina flue-cured tobacco barns, it contains a stone furnace and metal flues used to circulate hot air to the hanging tobacco.

As the ripened tobacco arrived at the barn from the field, the leaves were fastened, or "looped," onto sticks with twine and subsequently "housed" in the curing barn.  The sticks of tobacco leaves were hung on tier poles high up inside the structure.  When the barn was full of the leaf, fires were built in the brick furnaces, and the curing was begun.  For several days, the farmer tended the fires continuously, steadily increasing the temperature; this process effectively dried the tobacco by removing food and moisture from it, producing a lemon-yellow color leaf.  When the curing was finished, the doors of the barn were opened in order for the tobacco to regain moisture.

Visitors at the Duke Homestead curing barn.