"Bull Durham - Cynthiana, KY" Waymark

The hamlet of Durham, a few miles from the Duke home, already had achieved recognition for its enjoyable smoking tobacco, a fact which may have contributed to Washington's initial success in peddling his product. As the result of the coming of the railroad in 1854 and a southern shift in bright tobacco production, a few residents of Durham had begun the manufacture of tobacco products prior to the Civil War. The first factory was opened in 1858 by Robert Morris and his son who sold a brand called "Best Flavored Spanish Smoking Tobacco." During the proprietorship of John Ruffin Green, who bought the business a few years later, Durham emerged as a post-war tobacco manufacturing center. Green, aware of the growing importance and popularity of smoking tobacco, was careful to produce a superior product, utilizing only the best grades of leaf available. By the close of the war Green's pleasant tasting tobacco had achieved fame; former soldiers, who had availed themselves as Green's stock of tobacco while encamped in the area, were sending requests from all over the United States for additional supplies of the brand. Green further popularized his product by adopting the bull as his trademark, an idea he borrowed from the celebrated English Colman's Mustard, whose label also bore the bull's head. In addition he renamed the brand "Genuine Durham Smoking Tobacco," which later would become known simply as "Bull Durham."