Opis: History of North Carolina, Vol. 6 - Author Unknown

Excerpt from History of North Carolina, Vol. 6: North Carolina Biography

Richard Joshua Reynolds. The life story of every man is bound up with that of the community of which he forms a part. His relation to its growth and development constitutes a vital part of his own record. This is peculiarly true in the case of the subject of this sketch, Richard Joshua Reynolds, whose personal history and business achievements have been inseparably linked with the city that for forty-three years has been his home, the center of his activities and the headquarters of the great industry he has built up.

Some cities are made great by circumstance. Situated at the mouth of a large navigable stream, or on a natural harbor, or on some great trunk line railway, cities grow even in spite of themselves. Other cities not so situated are made great by the courage, faith, perseverance and industry of their people. Winston-Salem belongs to the latter class.

With a salubrious climate, located in the heart of the Piedmont section of North Carolina, in the center of a region famed for its tobacco, the Town of Winston forty years ago owed its claim to fame to the fact that it was the county seat of Forsyth County and to the circumstance that it was the twin of the old community of Salem, for a century the seat of the bishopric of the southern province of the Moravian Church and the site of the oldest school for girls in America.

It was then served by a small branch of the Southern Railway, later a part of the great Southern Railway System, far removed from any navigable waters or other seemingly natural advantages, and no man would then have been bold enough to prophesy that it was destined to become not only the largest, richest and most influential city in the state, but to become known throughout the world for its manufactured products.

The story of the rise of this little country town to international fame is of thrilling and compelling interest, yet a history of its development is out of place here. Suffice it to say that its blankets, knit goods, cotton goods, wagons and furniture, together with the products of its other varied industries, are favorably known throughout this country, but all these sink into comparative insignificance beside its world famous tobacco products.

R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is not only the chief manufacturing establishment in this thriving City of Winston-Salem, but it is the largest of its kind in the world, and because of it the city is known in many lands. Mr. Reynolds individually began the business in the year 1875. It was a modest beginning, his first factory being a building 36 by 60 feet in size, his working capital $5,100, and his first years output 150,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco. Today his company's plant is housed in forty-three great modern buildings (a building for each year of his residence in the city), many of them concrete, covering hundreds of thousands of square feet of floor space, equipped with every modern facility, ventilated and sanitary, and the 15,000 employes, if gathered together, could form a little city of their own. The authorized capital stock is now $40,000, 000, which is a very conservative capitalization. By comparison with other large companies in competition with it, it is very much under-capitalized. From his first years output of 150,000 pounds his guiding genius brought his company's sales in 1917 to $95,382,000, representing over 100,000,000 pounds of manufactured goods.

Much of this marvelous growth has occurred in the last ten years. In 1908 the company began to manufacture its now famous brand of smoking tobacco - Prince Albert. Shipments of the brand for the first year amounted to only 233,862 pounds, but before the close of the year 1917 over 600,000 two ounce "tidy red tins of P. A.," as it is popularly known, were being manufactured every lay and the "Prince Albert Special," a train consisting of an average of th

Szczegóły: History of North Carolina, Vol. 6 - Author Unknown

Nazwa: History of North Carolina, Vol. 6 North Carolina Biography (Classic Reprint)
Autor: Author Unknown
Wydawnictwo: FB &c Ltd
Kod paskowy: 9781331432609
Języki: angielski
Ilość stron: 652
Format: 15.2x22.9cm
Oprawa: Miękka

Recenzje: History of North Carolina, Vol. 6 - Author Unknown