American Tobacco Campus

American Tobacco Campus is the obvious starting point for any walking tour of central Durham. The red-brick warehouses and tall water tower of the old cigarette factory still dominate the southern edge of downtown, and the boardwalk that runs through the complex — flanked by restaurants, ice-cream shops, and the lawn outside the Durham Performing Arts Center — is one of the city's most agreeable hangouts on a warm evening.

The campus links directly south to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and east to the city's tech offices in the old Lucky Strike printing buildings. The renovated American Underground complex within the campus has been one of the most successful tech start-up hubs in the South.

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A story
The American Tobacco Company built this warehouse complex in the 1890s to roll the Lucky Strike cigarettes that made Durham rich. When the company finally left in the 1980s, the site sat derelict for fifteen years before a long redevelopment in the 2000s turned it into the cornerstone of modern downtown Durham — restaurants and offices wrapped around a water feature that runs through the old roll-pack alley.