Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco, also known as “Genuine Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco,” was a world-famous brand of loose-leaf tabacco manufactured by W.T. Blackwell and Company in Durham, North Carolina. that originated around the 1850s and remained in production until August 15, 1988.  Over the years, the brand often changed ownership, yet continued to be one of the most successful tobacco brands of all time. The brand is most commonly associated with its highly successful advertising campaigns that revolutionized the advertising industry.   William Thomas Blackwell, an original investor and owner of the Blackwell Company, contributed greatly to the success of the product. Blackwell and his company’s tactics with the brand paved the way for other corporations to succeed through the acquisition of the Bull Durham trademark. The success of the product ultimately is due to the successful advertising campaigns that made Durham world famous, brought jobs to the city, and made Durham the tobacco capital of the United States.

John Ruffin Green

John Ruffin Green, a tobacco peddler of the 1850s, owned and operated the J.R. Green Factory, the original place of production for Bull Durham. Green found moderate success in his own endeavors. The  brought business to the Green Company when soldiers on both sides of the war used Green’s tobacco. The brand then spread by word of mouth due to its popularity with the soldiers.  Soon his business grew to be bigger than he could manage by himself

Bull Durham Brand

Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco advertising had success due to the extent to which the product was branded. Green and later the Blackwell Company established the bull as the logo for “Genuine Durham Smoking Tobacco” in order to help do this. The logo of the bull evidently comes from “Durham Mustard” containers from Durham, England.   With the establishment of the logo, the Blackwell Company extended the branding idea, putting the bull logo on all advertisements and labels. This logo would eventually be “one of most recognizable product advertisements around the country.”

The Blackwell Company

The Blackwell Company was the first big company to be located in Durham, sparked the tobacco craze within Durham.
W.T. Blackwell, called the “father of Durham” by Durham’s first historian, changed Durham resident’s lives during his time with the Blackwell Company.  When Blackwell started the first tobacco warehouse he “essentially built Durham into a center where tobacco farmers could bring their tobacco to be sold at high prices.  ”The tobacco warehouse industry spurred the need for the first banks in Durham, which came about in 1878.  Around this time Blackwell also implemented the first telephones in Durham.  The expansion of the tobacco industry gave rise to the need for a cotton industry  and tobacco bag making companies, such as the Golden Belt Manufacturing Company.  The firm's product, Bull Durham tobacco, gave rise to the city's nickname of the Bull City.