Old Tobacco Barn

Tobacco barns like this one dot the landscape of eastern North Carolina, although their conditions are usually not as good as this one. They are named tobacco barns since they were used to hang freshly cropped tobacco inside on sticks for curing overnight with heat. As a child in the summer, I remember many tobacco barns burning due to poor safety conditions in the curing process. The shelters around the barns were for storage and for protection from the sun for folks working at the barn. We did not live on a farm, but hiring out to work in tobacco is not one of my most pleasant youth memories.