Bright-Leaf Tobacco Barns

L-55

By the latter decades of the 19th century, bright-leaf tobacco harvested across Southside Virginia was typically cured in hand-hewn log barns outfitted with wood-burning stoves. Inside these barns, tobacco leaves were hung from sticks that rested on horizontal tier-poles. Flues (or ducts) distributed heat, which cured the leaves while protecting them from smoke. The leaves were then stored in pack barns, graded for quality, and sent to auction. Flue-cure tobacco barns were retrofitted with oil and gas burners after World War II and fell into disuse with the introduction of bulk-curing barns in the 1970s.

Department of Historic Resources, 2014

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Barbara Day Bass, The Golden Leaf: A Brief History of Tobacco in Halifax County, Virginia, and the National Tobacco Festivals, 1935-1941 (Lynchburg: Warwick House Publishers, 2008), 20, 21, 36, 37. Pete Daniel, “Reasons to Talk About Tobacco,” Journal of American History, vol. 96 http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/issues/963/presidential_address/ Jordan Goodman, ed., Tobacco in History and Culture: An Encyclopedia (Farmington Hills, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005), 449-450 Barbara Hahn, Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 29, 107-109, 119. Nannie M. Tilley, The Bright-Tobacco Industry, 1860-1929 (Chapel Hill, UNC Press, 1948), 64. Billy Yeargin, North Carolina Tobacco, a History (Charleston: The History Press, 2008).