Industry .snugs close to the river. Left, the huge, 50-ycar-old plant (much expanded) of the Washington Mills at Mayo-
dan. Bridge crosses the Dan in left foreground; village is behind. (Bill Ray Photo.) Right, alongside the river sprawls
some of the plants of Ficldcrcst at Spray.
Behind Each Town , a Story
The Eight Towns of Rockingham
Irvin Cobb, a visitor, once called
Rcidsvillc "a dimple in the chin of
Piedmont,” but Rcidsvillc calls
itself The Lucky City. Some people
think that is because of a not-obscurc
product made there by the American
Tobacco Company. Good times befell
the town ever since Mr. Buck Duke
shouldered himself into the town’s to¬
bacco business.
But Claude Scurry has dug up an¬
other reason: Rcidsvillc at its very
beginning got rid of bad luck. When
Reuben Reid and his wife built the
first home on the site of the town in
1815 or 1816, there appeared a Mr.
Sam Barnes, a neighborly gentleman,
who told the young couple not to enter
their home until he had performed a
little antiseptic chore. Whereupon Sam
produced a bag of salt which he scat¬
tered over Mrs. Reid’s new floors,
forever, he said, forbidding the prem¬
ises to witches.
The Reid home stood on a con¬
siderable ridge, 841 feet above sea
level. It was on the divide between the
basins of the Roanoke River and the
Cape Fear — waters drained down one
slope to the Dan, thence to Albemarle
Sound. Down the other, rain washed
into the Haw River and to the Atlan¬
tic ocean. Around the house a village
grew slowly. For a while it was a
stage-coach stop and the militia mus-
)6
ter grounds, but the first boom came
when the Confederacy constructed
the Piedmont Airline (now a link in
the Southern), and Major Mortimer
Oakes built a hotel. William Lindsey
in 1858 started making plug tobacco
— "Lindsey’s Level Best" — and pro¬
phetically spelled out the town’s
economic future. Other tobacco manu¬
facturers came, the most notable being
F. R. and S. C. Penn, coming in 1874
from Henry County, Virginia. The
Penns stayed with the business and
saw it grow. The tobacco warehouse
industry (today comprising 6 houses
selling nearly $7, 000,000 in tobacco)
began in 1872.
Rcidsvillc took another step into a
brisk future when
фс
American To¬
bacco Company absorbed the Penn
factory, with Charles Penn as vice-
president. It really got going with the
spectacular rise of cigarettes. For a
long time the town produced plug and
smoking tobacco, but now the big plant
puis out only Lucky Strikes — some 30
billion or more per year. It is the larg¬
est enterprise and employer in Rcids¬
villc.
Besides the cigarette output, and
the stemming and re-drying of tobacco.
Rcidsville’s industrial products include
By PAUL PLEASANTS
cloth and paper bags, cotton twills,
ribbon, bedspreads, hose, auto batter¬
ies, and concrete products. Twenty-
one auto-freight lines serve the city
on 4 highways. The town has an air¬
port, a daily newspaper and two ra¬
dio stations.
Incorporated in 1873 and named
for Reuben, the town today has a
population of 1 1,704 and is the largest
in Rockingham. The non-white popu¬
lation totals 2,555. In 1951 it had re¬
tail sales of $15,725,000, and an
effective buying income of $11,859,-
000 (per family $3.488). The census
gives a median income for families of
$2,750.
Rcidsvillc prides itself on its mu- I
nicipal government and civic status.
Its city manager, Joe Wommack, has
been on the job for 26 years. It has a
tax rate of $1.20, a ycar-around recre¬
ation program, a city school system,'
and a country club. Its many organiza¬
tions include a dozen garden clubs.
Only 3 miles of the town's streets are
unpaved. The Annie Penn Memorial
Hospital has just completed an ex¬
pansion program, and now has 83
beds and 20 bassinets.
Madison
Sunning on the river bank between
two ridges, Madison, a town of 1,789
population (557 alt.) talks about .
THE STATE, march 20, 1953
