The two buildings of the factory were constructed about the same time. In them, plug and twist tobacco, the favorite forms of the “weed” in the latter part of the nineteenth century, were manufactured and sold throughout America and the world, especially in Australia and New Guinea. By 1909, this thriving establishment had about 800 employees, most of them African Americans. In 1979–1984, the factory was renovated into subsidized apartments for the elderly and handicapped. The four-story gable-roof western structure, originally with wooden interior structural framing in its open plan, has a handsome corbeled brick cornice that is continued along the slightly projecting gabled central pavilion. The eastern building, built around an ample courtyard, is, like the western section, a four-story brick structure with segmental-arched windows.