And it's by R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem, N.C. That used to be the major tobacco and cigarette manufacturing/processing city in N.C., along with Durham. I think both cities may be entirely without cigarette plants today. Reynolds kept losing jobs and capacity over decades, and finally closed out and diversified into food and other products. I've been in N.C. since 1972, but somehow never got myself to a public tobacco auction, of which there were many. It was the big cash-in for tobacco farmers and a sort of harvest fair festival. The auctioneers were artists of a sort. Today I think most leaf is grown under contract. It's much reduced from the past, but still a big crop in the state. The old tobacco auction warehouses are strewn across rural counties and are sometimes used for flea markets.
An odd footnote: Winston-Salem is the home of a well-regarded Wake Forest University, so-named because it originated in a little town north of Raleigh by that name, Wake Forest. Today that campus is the home of the Southeastern Seminary, founded by the Baptists.
I trained as a Veterans Administration on-campus representative at the regional office in Winston-Salem, and worked with them for about four years on campuses in the Raleigh area.
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