Durham's Tobacco Heritage Walking Tour

211 W. Parrish St.,Durham NC 27701

12 June, 2021

Description

Downtown Durham NC walking tour telling stories about Durham's industrial boom and the buildings that remain today. Important pandemic safety rules and protocols. • Only 10 tour goers are allowed per group tour. Preservation Durham offers free walking and bike tours that introduce downtown Durham’s history and architecture. The tour departs at the corner of Parrish and Corcoran Streets at the "Major" the Bull sculpture. Look for a sign on the grass. Preservation Durham’s enthusiastic and well-informed volunteer tour guides will lead you through the history of the tobacco industry as they tell many tales from Durham’s past, using oral histories and photographs to illustrate the history of tobacco and the people who supplied tobacco products known throughout the world. The tour includes descriptions of life in the factories and at home for the thousands of workers who made the Bull City one of the biggest industrial cities in the South as well as those who, like guitarist John Dee Holeman, trekked to Durham’s tobacco auctions to play the blues. “The tour touches on life in the work force, market days in Durham’s auction warehouses, the development of the cigarette and how that brought Durham into the global arena, and transformation of Durham’s identity from a city of tobacco to a city of medicine.” – Cynthia Satterfield, one of several researchers who prepared the program