Third Factory

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Curing Barn
Pack House
First Factory
Third Factory
The Homestead
Tobacco

 

 

 

Washington Duke and his Third Tobacco Factory, c. 1904

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building an Empire

In 1868 Brodie Duke tried to persuade his father to move the manufacturing operation to Durham.  Though Washington Duke decided to continue at a rural location, he provided funds for Brodie to establish his own factory in Durham, where he began production in 1870.  Around that time also, Washington began to concentrate more heavily on the manufacture of tobacco; he constructed a two-story frame building--the third factory, and hired additional workers to handle the increased production.  Until that time, there had been no building on the property built specifically for the manufacture of smoking tobacco.  The third factory was designed to receive and store un-manufactured tobacco and to house the manufacturing operation.  The structure featured wide doors to facilitate loading and unloading of tobacco.  Rafters inside the building held tier poles probably used for hanging sticks of tobacco prior to manufacture; small doors in the attic were opened or closed to regulate the moisture content of the hanging leaves.  Square holes cut into the ceiling of the first floor apparently were openings for chutes.  The manufactory probably contained no sophisticated machinery; no records have been found detailing the interior contents, though it must have contained such items as flails, sieves, work tables, weighing scales, and an assortment of baskets and barrels.

Still, the homestead tobacco business retained its simple, family-oriented manufacturing processes.  The process of manufacture at the third factory was simple and slow--as it had been at the first and second factories in use previously.  Workers flailed the cured tobacco, beating the dry leaves into a very fine state; by forcing it through a sieve, laborers then granulated the crushed leaf; other skilled workers weighed and packed the sieved tobacco.  Demonstrations of processes used in early tobacco manufacturing are presented in this factory.  By 1873, the Dukes were producing around 125,000 pounds of smoking tobacco annually.

As the enterprise steadily expanded, and the number of customers outside of North Carolina increased, Washington Duke began to consider the advantages of moving his business into town.  Conditions in Durham in the early 1870s were very favorable for the manufacture of tobacco; the location of the North Carolina railroad station was convenient for shipping, and a warehouse for the sale of leaf tobacco had been opened in 1871.  Durham was rapidly becoming a major tobacco center.  In April 1874, Duke purchased two acres near the railroad where he built a new factory.