Roycroft Warehouse

Sale day, 1940. Looking northwest from Rigsbee Ave. and Seminary St.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

The Roycroft Warehouse was one of a series of extremely large warehouses that covered the area north/northeast of downtown Durham. I've previously covered several of the major warehouses, including the Big 4 and Banner Warehouses, destroyed in the conflagration following the acquittal of Private Booker Spicely's murderer, as well as the Star Brick Warehouse and Planters Warehouse. These warehouses were a second and third generation of sales warehouses,having supplanted Parrish's Warehouse, the Globe Warehouse, the Reams warehouse, and others.

These warehouses were the site of the tobacco auctions - where farmers would come to market and sell their tobacco - as such, the auctions were seasonal events - predictable and yet exciting. The first tobacco auction in Durham was held on May 18, 1871 in the Reams Warehouse, which stood on the present-day American Tobacco Campus. The auction allowed farmers to sell to multiple factories and factories to buy from multiple farmers - at the same time. I very much recommend this brief video clip on YouTube from a documentary about tobacco auctioneers. I believe I first saw this linked on Whig Hill.

The Roycroft No.1 and No.2 covered the entire large block between Foster St., Seminary St., Rigsbee Ave., and Hunt St.

In 1951, the Roycroft was noted to be the "oldest tobacco warehouse to be operated continuously by the same family." Henry Roycroft started in tobacco sales in 1895 in Rocky Mount, operating a tobacco during the same period. He came to Durham in 1910, still engaged in both 'warehousing' and farming. In 1928, he went into business for himself under the Roycroft name along with his son Marvin Roycroft.

Sale day, 1940 - looking west on Seminary St.
(Courtesy Library of Congress)

Sale day, 1940, looking north-northwest on Rigbsee Ave. from near Seminary St. Evidently the man wearing the sign lost a Duke-Carolina bet and is wheeling the Duke fan around in a wheelbarrow.
(Courtesy Library of Congress)

Sale day, 1940. Looking northwest from Rigsbee Ave. and Seminary St.
(Courtesy Library of Congress)

Sale day, 1940. Looking north-northeast from Rigsbee Ave. and Seminary St.
(Courtesy Library of Congress)

Sale day, 1940. Looking northwest from Rigsbee Ave. and Seminary St.
(Courtesy Library of Congress)

Looking west-northwest down Seminary St. towards the Roycroft Warehouse, 1940s.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Annotated aerial of the warehouse district, 1959. I've also marked the location of the Banner and Big 4 warehouses, which burned in 1944.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Some photos below of a partial roof collapse after a snowstorm in 1960:

03.11.60 (Courtesy Herald-Sun)

03.11.60 (Courtesy Herald-Sun)

03.11.60 (Courtesy Herald-Sun)

03.11.60 (Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Looking northwest, 08.21.61.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Blurry shot of the No. 2 entrance to the Roycroft, looking south-southwest on Rigsbee Ave.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

By the 1960s, tobacco and the auctions were on the decline. Both the general decrease in the demand for tobacco and an ongoing shift from auction sales to direct sales (from farmer to manufacturer) meant a slow ebb of the seasonal tobacco auctions.

Tobacco being brought to auction in the back of pickup, 08.27.68
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

I've been trying to nail down the date when tobacco auctions ceased in Durham - the only date I've found, associated with the Liberty Warehouse, is 1984. The Roycroft warehouse was still in existence in 1987.

Looking north on Foster St. from the Hill Building, 1986
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Looking west down Seminary St., 1987
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

But it was purchased and demolished for parking when the Blue Monster, i.e. the Durham Center was constructed in 1987.

Looking southwest at the Roycroft being torn down, 1987.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

It remains an immense surface parking lot, which last year served as the Centerfest tarmac. I'm certainly of the opinion that the brouhaha around this Central Park area will never amount to too much while this much open asphalt is still at the center of the landscape.

Looking northwest from Seminary St. and Rigsbee Ave., 07.06.08

Looking west down Seminary St., 07.06.08.

More broadly, and this is a recurring theme as I examine the tobacco warehouses, it seems a shame that such a vibrant part of Durham's cultural vitality has been consigned to the bin of shame with the Folium Non Grata. We should be able to celebrate the cultural history of a community that followed the rhythm of the tobacco harvest without worrying that such celebration is unseemly because of the personal and public health toll of tobacco use. The collapsing of the chronology of tobacco, casting a negative light over the lives and joy of generations of people who lived in the early to mid-20th century is rather unfair. We should hope to be luckier than to have our joys and culture caught in a reductionist swath of righteous indignation that subsequent generations will undoubtedly heap upon ours.

It takes nothing away from the myriad public health campaigns, policy measures, personal appeals, educational programs, etc. to find beauty in the cadence of the auctioneer's voice or humor in the pictures of the lost bet on a Duke-Carolina game, above - pictures entirely of people who bought and sold tobacco for their livelihood.

The Duke Homestead certainly does a fine job preserving these aspects of Durham culture, and I believe that they have an annual festival (including a mock auction). I've never been, but it looks like it's September 6 this year. Moving forward, I hope we can find ways to integrate this historical context into more central-Durham events. I'm not suggesting that we restart the yearly Tobacco Jubilee and Parade, but tobacco was, after all, Durham's raison d'etre. I doubt very much that anything we love about Durham would be in Durham without it.