Jimmy Dawson, farm manager for K. M. Biggs Farms, carefully places a handmade shingle on a scale model tobacco barn, which he is building to help showcase the history of flue-cured tobacco in Robeson County.

Because of frequent showers and warm temperatures, the tobacco crop in Robeson County is looking pretty good. Hopefully, our farmers will continue to get frequent showers, and no storms, for the rest of the growing season.

When I began working with Cooperative Extension in the early 1980s, about 17,000 acres of tobacco were planted in the county. Most of the farmers in the county grew tobacco, helped other farmers with their tobacco crop, or owned farms with a tobacco quota that they rented out to other farmers. In other words, almost everyone in the county was involved in tobacco during the summer.

According to Giles Floyd, Director of the USDA Farm Service Agency, there are only about 5,500 acres of tobacco planted in the county this year. There is no longer a tobacco quota system, and many of the smaller tobacco farmers have quit growing tobacco altogether. Today, there are less than 40 tobacco farms in the county, and all of them are large and highly mechanized.

When I grew up on a small tobacco farm, I always hated to see the 4th of July holidays approaching. By that time of the year, it was stifling hot and humid, and it was time to start barning tobacco.

Today, as the 4th of July approaches, it is again stifling hot and humid, but I don't have to think about barning tobacco. I just think about the memories of growing up on a tobacco farm and how tobacco barns became the center of our activities during the summer.

Kerrie Roach began working with us a couple of months ago as our Extension Horticultural Agent. She is a native of upstate New York and a recent graduate of Clemson. As we traveled around the county so she could meet some of the local vegetable farmers, I tried to explain the history of tobacco in this county and tried to show her an old "stick" tobacco barn. Much to my dismay, it was very hard to find an old tobacco barn still standing. I could find a few metal bulk barns, although most of them had been abandoned. Almost all of the old wooden barns have long since rotted away or have been destroyed, because there is no longer any use for barns of that shape and construction.

You can imagine my surprise and excitement when I received a call a few weeks ago from Jimmy Dawson, a longtime friend of mine and a lifelong employee of K. M. Biggs Farms. Jimmy invited me to come look at his tobacco barn. Not knowing what I was going to see, I accepted his invitation to meet him at the old K. M. Biggs Tractor Shop on Elizabethtown Road. I thought we would probably jump into his pickup and go out into the county somewhere where he would show me an old tobacco barn he had remodeled as a club house, shop, or storage shed.

When I arrived, he invited me into the building and escorted me to what used to be the showroom of the old K. M. Biggs Tractor Dealership. There on a large table in the middle of the room was a scale model of an old "stick" tobacco barn, about half way completed. The detail was amazing. The barn was being built to exact scale of 1 inch equals 20 feet. Since the old barns were typically 20 feet square, this model was 20 inches square.

Jimmy had painstakingly sawed each board to exact scale from old tobacco sticks that had actually been used in the barning and curing process over 30 years ago. He shared that when he was only six years old, he had helped his uncle build a tobacco barn and later had helped both his father and uncle build several more tobacco barns on Biggs' farms throughout the county. So he could remember exactly how the barns were built and every minute detail about each feature of the barns.

As I looked closely at the barn, I was amazed at the detail. There were tiny hinges on the doors. Each brick for the wood-burning furnace was cut from wood and painted red, and each cinder block for the foundation was cut from wood and painted gray. Over 5,000 tiny shingles were cut for the roof and shelters. There was a vent door on hinges at the top of the eave, racks under the shelters around the barn where tobacco was placed when it was removed from the sled, and even a couple of scale model tobacco sleds under the shelters.

Just looking at the unfinished barn brought back a lot of memories. Since Jimmy and I are about the same age and come from similar backgrounds, we talked for a couple of hours about the fun we had around old tobacco barns and the hard work that taught us work ethics and responsibility.

Jimmy shared that he too was concerned that tobacco had played such an important role in the history of this county yet much of this history is being lost due to lack of concern and neglect. This model will first be shown at the county fair in October where it can been seen by lots of people and will then be moved to a prominent and, hopefully, permanent display place at Biggs Park Mall where it can be viewed for many years to come.

I urge you to make arrangements to view this amazing piece of handiwork when it goes on display at the fair or at the mall. If you have ever been involved in tobacco, it will bring back memories to you as well.

E-mail address: Everett_Davis@ncsu.edu

Mailing Address:
P. O. Box 2280
Lumberton, NC 28359-2280

Phone: 910-671-3276
Fax: 910-671-6278

Date Created 06/24/09