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.