Meet: the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company

Proper etiquette requires that I begin this neighborhood exploration with its founding member: the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company. Founded in 1887, Golden Belt Manufacturing Company’s history really begins shortly after the Civil War. With Golden Leaf tobacco, also known as Bright Leaf tobacco, at its highest, Blackwell Tobacco Company began to run into a shortage of muslin bags for its loose tobacco. These bags were predominately made by Durhamite women (along with the women from the surrounding communities). These determined Durhamite women were able to produce 600 bags per day, an incredible amount only surpassed by the demand for tobacco cigarettes.

Durham, steeped with innovation from its inception, housed the minds that would create the Kerr-Patterson machine (named after its inventors) capable of producing 13,000 muslin bags per day—enabling James Buchanan Duke to produce 817 million cigarettes a day. After consolidating his enterprise into American Tobacco in 1890, Duke visited the manufacturing company, and nine years later, purchased GBMC.

In 1900, a mill was built on East Main Street to house GBMC, and over one-hundred years later, it still remains as a pinpoint on Durham’s rich history. The building was divided into a cotton mill and a bag mill. The company constructed approximately 50 mill homes in the adjacent neighborhood, creating the Golden Belt neighborhood.

The loose tobacco boom ended after the Depression, and with it, GBMC’s thriving economy. The business adapted to the times, and remained an integral part of the tobacco packaging world until the 1990’s. It was later acquired by Scientific Properties, and after an intense renovation, it was transformed into the modern, eco-friendly Golden Belt Arts.

As East Durham builds momentum, Golden Belt continues to house artists, first time home buyers, and faithful East Durham Lovers in a diverse, eclectic and gritty community. With artists’ galleries open to the public on the First Wednesday, Second Saturday and Third Friday, there’s tons of creative energy overflowing into Durham’s working-class art lifestyle. If you haven’t ventured out into the historic halls of GBMC, you are truly missing out on an integral part of Durham’s rich historical roots, not to mention the occasional glass of free wine, beautiful expressions of art, and some rather familiar tenants.

The Wisdom of Stability.

During my brief travels in South Africa, I had the chance to work with some local design students attempting to merge modernity with proverbs passed from the lips of their fathers. Etch this one forever in your mind:

“The foot is slipperiness. To walk is easy, just go.”

I’m always tempted to justify my vagabond shoes when I hear saying such as this. Viewing life through the pages of a National Geographic seems to no longer be sufficient for me, perhaps for my generation: we feel the overwhelming desire to experience the places that once only existed in books. Our knowledge of the world’s vast cultures has expanded further than any other generation thanks to the internet, habitat destruction and Angelina Jolie's adopting habits. We’ve gained the ability to easily access the remotest places on earth, something that simply did not exist for any other generation.

And while I believe that travel is an inherently “good” thing, it has become our default means of life expectations. We wander until our late thirties or early forties because we view settling down as settling for a lesser life. Kids remaining in the town of their pre-collegiate education are viewed as failures. Why rush into the rest of your life, right?

Recently, I read a book by Durhamite Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove entitled, The Wisdom of Stability, and the content rang (mostly) true. The author posited that perhaps our call to go forth doesn’t necessarily have to lead us to the Louvre or the capitals of the Old World. Perhaps the calling is as simple as go forth to your neighborhood and be a part of it. It was an interesting, thought-provoking read, and in many ways, it confirmed the webs that my mind was spinning.

And so we bought a house in a transitional neighborhood in East Durham. We are now residents in Durham’s Historic Golden Belt Neighborhood, complete with a red Bungalow and a baby on the way. The neighborhood feels like a great place to plat ourselves and let roots work their way deep down. Like most of Durham, Golden Belt is diverse with lots of different cultures, races and economic standings coming together in close quarters.

This blog will highlight the best of Durham: our neighbors, historic homes, renovations to our home, our garden (hopefully), and all the best that East Durham has to offer. I look forward to having my feet roam our new neighborhood and introducing you to the city I love.

Until then…