68 Business View Magazine - September 2016
Durham, North Carolina
A city of thriving, livable neighborhoods
In 1701, the English explorer, John Lawson, called the
area which was to become Durham, North Carolina,
“the flower of the Carolinas.” Originally inhabited by
the Eno and Occoneechi Tribes, the land was settled
during the mid-1700s by Scots, Irish, and English. Over
time, Durham and its surrounding counties became
well-known for the region’s mild and flavorful tobac-
co grown and processed by the Bull Durham Tobacco
Company as well as firms owned by Washington Duke
and his family, which were, one day, to become the
world’s largest tobacco manufacturing conglomerate.
In the early 20th century, Duke Power (now Duke En-
ergy) began bringing in electricity from the hydroelec-
tric dams in the western mountains of North Carolina,
through the newly-invented technology of high voltage
power lines. The early electrification of Durham also
helped encourage a growing textile industry located
just outside the city. Drawing a labor force from the
economic demise of single family farms in the region
at the time, these textile mills soon doubled the popu-
lation of the city.
