Bull City — Duke University, the Research Triangle, and the South's Most Exciting Food Scene
Durham was a tobacco town — the American Tobacco Company processed more leaf tobacco here than anywhere in the world and made the Duke family one of the wealthiest in America. James Duke's 1924 gift to Trinity College created Duke University overnight, and the institution has reshaped the city ever since, seeding the Research Triangle Park, which houses over 300 companies employing 65,000 people between Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. The American Tobacco historic campus, where Lucky Strikes were rolled, is now a mixed-use food and creative hub. Durham's restaurant scene — anchored by the D…
Durham was a tobacco town — the American Tobacco Company, founded by James Buchanan Duke in 1890, processed more leaf here than anywhere in the world and funded both the city's growth and Duke University. The Research Triangle Park, established in 1959 between Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, seeded the biotech and pharmaceutical industries that now define the regional economy. Durham's Hayti district was one of the most prosperous Black commercial neighbourhoods in the American South before urban renewal and the construction of the Durham Freeway destroyed it in the 1960s — a loss that shad…