1865

ORANGE, North Carolina

Agriculture, Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

In 1865, John Ruffin Green, a newcomer to Durham, bought a tobacco factory from Dr. Richard Blacknall. Green knew that there was a future in the manufacturing of tobacco because he noticed the extensive amount of its consumption in the Confederate Army and among university students. Green focused on the manufacture of smoking tobacco by buying only the best grades of leaf. Later that year, a terrible...