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A Letter From the President:

History in our Midst is another milestone in the long- standing efforts of Measurement Incorporated (MI) to play a meaningful role in invigorating and stabil- izing the commercial culture of downtown Durham.

This booklet is a rare chance to recapture and celebrate the remarkable history of our company’s immediate neighborhood, including the buildings we have renovated and now occupy.

2010 marks MI’s 30th anniversary, and over that time MI has greatly advanced its corporate story. I am so proud of what we have accomplished together in the field of educational assessment. It is important work.

Of course, MI’s employees have made the real difference in what we do, and I am continually grateful for their time, devotion, spirit, and talents.

After 30 years, I have heard many stories about the personalities who used to walk the halls of our buildings, or our streets, before we did. Those individuals left fascinating legacies worth revisiting.

I hope you enjoy History in our Midst.

423 Morris Street • Durham, NC 27701 (919) 683-2413 • www.measinc.com TM Historic Downtown Durham

Measurement Incorporated and surrounding area At the dawn of the 20th century, a tornado of winning and losing, local reporter reflected on the fantastic fortune and fallings out, extraordinary ups and downs in the charitable actions and checkered life of a Durham man: travels. His fluctuating journey toward the end of the 19th century stands in “The symbolism of all earnest contrast to the steady resolve and living and striving is a results of Measurement Incorporated, a wrestling nip and tuck with highly respected business and leading adverse circumstances, and it civic force in the comeback of is in the struggles of the Durham’s downtown in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. wrestling that skill and Under founder and president Dr. strength are won. The hero of Henry Scherich, MI is a picture of today is one who never yields, progressive business planted in the who conquers circumstance, heart of Durham, a city best known for who snatches success from birthing the legendary tobacco. That worldwide brand put failure and wrests victory Durham on the international map of from defeat.” commerce. Now, a century later, Measurement - Durham Recorder Incorporated has been a pioneer in its industry: state-of-the-art standardized The man was Brodie L. Duke. And the test development and scoring. Much of Durham Recorder called him a hero, at MI’s success can be credited to a least for his fortitude. unique and unwavering respect for its ’s original tobacco surroundings, its employees, and its warehouse, said to be one of the oldest mission. Over time, just as Brodie and largest post-Civil War era Duke did, MI has conquered structures of its kind in downtown circumstance with focus and drive, Durham, is occupied today by carving its own place in the vortex of Measurement Incorporated (MI), a top- Bull City business and cultural history. tier educational testing and assessment Today, MI’s landscape both protects firm that recently marked the thirtieth and expands upon a string of year of its history in Durham. significant eras involving downtown MI’s now-refurbished Brodie Duke Durham’s economic, religious, office building is a gem among the medical, educational, and architectural company’s trio of historic buildings history. along Morris, Liggett, and Corporation Across Liggett Street from the Streets. Brodie Duke building, MI also Brodie Duke’s life tale was a occupies the original BC Remedy 1 Company production facility at the bird’s eye view of baseball history, too. corner of Morris and Corporation There is more. A mere two blocks Streets. The structure at 423 Morris, south on Morris Street, the enormous now MI’s administrative hub, was and elegant Imperial Tobacco building another company renovation project stands proudly in the shadows of the that saved a significant piece of Durham skyline. MI also acquired this Durham’s commercial past. sprawling edifice, which has Nestled across Morris Street from connections to the world’s great the Historic Durham Athletic Park tobacco wars and the Dukes of (DAP), the rejuvenated BC building Durham, with their once all- sits within earshot of yesterday’s encompassing American Tobacco echoes: batted balls and cheering fans Company. At this site, Imperial would on sunny summer days. The stately also advance some of the tobacco old DAP, where much of the film Bull industry’s pivotal research break- Durham was set, offers MI employees a throughs in the mid-20th century. Even the street that serves as MI’s The afternoon sun shines through a wall of windows in the renovated Imperial Building primary home, Morris Street, comes with its own marvelous story of tobacco drama and community evolution—tracing back to R.F. Morris and the 1850s. This early tobacco period foreshadowed the era when Durham would become so well known its slogan was “Durham, renowned the world around.” It is not widely known that R.F. Morris was a baron of tobacco before tobacco was big. In fact, Morris’s career contains a notable link to Bull Durham tobacco, which made the city famous. History in our Midst tells these stories, beginning in the years just before this country’s Industrial Revolution, and then moving forward to MI’s role in educational reform some 100 years later. Measurement Incorporated, with its contribution and devotion to history, is colorfully connected to a collection of legacies 2 that shaped the inspiring community rising through the ranks of two in which we live. educational publishing and testing companies, Scherich was ready to “Why did we succeed? Because stake his future in the growing testing we worked day and night, and field. did not waste our time sitting Then living with his wife in at some stove in a country store Durham, , Scherich indulging in trivial conver- founded Measurement Incorporated. sation, and finding fault with MI began inauspiciously in the basement of his former home on those who had not buried their Woodrow Street, near what was then talents.” Watts Hospital, now the North Carolina School of Science & - Brodie Duke, 1902 Mathematics. The small company later moved its headquarters to the basement of a podiatrist’s office on Broad Street, then into the basement of Northgate Mall.

In 1980, MI was a budding idea in the mind of an understated, unassuming Midwesterner named Henry Scherich. “Hank” Scherich was born and raised in the Red Hills of southwestern Kansas, where he grew up on and around an expansive ranch managed by his father. After high school graduation, Scherich left the ranch to attend college. Upon acquiring his undergraduate degree, he taught high school. He interspersed continued higher education with various professional positions and eventually earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology with an emphasis in statistics and measurement. In January 1980, five years after obtaining his Ph.D. and gaining Measurement Incorporated President Henry substantial work experience while “Hank” Scherich 3 It soon outgrew all the endeavor by gathering a group of “underground” surroundings. MI skilled professionals dedicated to this was ready to blossom beyond those specialized sector. His cohesive humble borders. collection of people carved out a MI was initially conceived as a respected niche for the fledgling consultancy that would provide a business. variety of contract research and The company continued to expand evaluation services. However, by steadily and substantially, and now capitalizing on two emerging trends has over 300 full-time employees in assessment, MI was quick to spread over its three downtown establish a more marketable, buildings. Further, due to the seasonal sustainable identity. nature of scoring, MI developed a First, states had begun to recognize reliable, sophisticated system of hiring the need to assess—carefully and and training hundreds of temporary, accurately—students’ writing skills. high-skilled and well-educated Improvements in “handscoring” employees to handscore tests under would become an MI hallmark. Later, tight deadline pressure. At busy times, other forms of open-ended, show- MI’s payroll can swell to over 5,000 your-work, constructed response workers, yet quality control and testing would evolve, which required excellence in outcomes is firmly highly trained scorers. MI was ready maintained under MI’s professional and able to fill the need. management teams. In the end, responses on this type Within the field of handscoring, MI of test item allowed for much better has distinguished itself by relying on assessment of a student’s cognitive an extensive and disciplined approach and integrated learning skills, the kind to reader selection, training, and so valued at the college level and in monitoring that is unequalled in the the workplace. industry. Scherich succeeded in this From 1980 until today, MI’s corporate reputation in the educational testing field crystallized, and its revenue and operations steadily ascended. Although still acknowledged as a premier provider of handscoring services, MI has expanded its capability to include

4 the full breadth of assessment services, including research, test and item development, scoring, reporting, analysis, program evaluation, tutoring, and associated technical assistance. The company maintains over a dozen offices in the eastern U.S. and scores more than 10 million tests annually. Over its three decades in business, MI has played MI employees attend a scoring meeting a direct role in supporting as an active, generous member of the large-scale assessment programs for surrounding Durham community. more than two dozen state depart- Scherich and the company’s other ments of education, along with leaders place a high premium on civic numerous private educational groups. engagement, family activities, and MI has also become an educational overall professional enrichment. MI is assessment technology leader, and its an employee-owned company, and ongoing initiatives in that area reflect Scherich has compared employee the company’s continuous pursuit of ownership to home ownership, innovation and reinvention. believing that people value and take But business is only a part of the care of what they own. MI story. Hank Scherich instinctively The MI way has been a path of felt from the beginning that a cautious, calm, measured growth and humanistic, inclusive work environ- return, which is only fitting for a ment would increase staff morale, business that centers on the careful loyalty, productivity, and ultimately, measure of knowledge and profitability. Many of MI’s top achievement. Hank Scherich, the quiet, employees joined Scherich early in studious man from Kansas, has helped their careers and helped put his build an enterprise that, even with all philosophy into practice. As a its corporate accomplishments, retains testament to Scherich’s vision, the the rewarding atmosphere found in a talented team has stayed together place where people truly enjoy and and thrived. take pride in where they work and The company’s strong business and what they do there. financial success has been accompanied by close attention to its parallel mission

5 connotes little. It is, for many, just another street on the northern edge of Downtown Durham — a subtle All due credit goes to Robert straightaway running by today’s Morris. He deserves it; he was towering Durham Centre. Gaze further the first. back in time, though, and there is much more to see. R.F. Morris was a - Jim Wise, Durham columnist Durham tobacco original and an original town father to boot. History and geography connect former Mayor Morris and his street quite intimately with a much better known roadway: Main Street. In her book, Durham County, local historian Jean Anderson wrote about a fascinating, first-hand reporter’s tale recorded back in 1896. There are men, young yet, who remember the Saturday afternoon when Robert F. Morris… Col. D.C. Parrish… (and others), with Brown Jordan as a ploughman, and two big Robert F. Morris mules…laid out Main Street, beginning at Esquire Angier’s MI’s corporate headquarters now occupies the southwest corner of the store and running east though intersection of Morris and Corporation an old field, and two long Streets. Two blocks away, near the furrows on either end about a south end of Morris, stands the Imperial Building. The Brodie Duke mile long showed where the warehouse is a mere 100 yards from street was to be. where Morris Street stretches past the Shortly after that long, hot day, a old ballpark. posse of sturdy, forward-thinking men To most people only anecdotally convened the town’s first governing familiar with the annals of tobacco board meeting. There, Robert Morris history, Morris Street in Durham 6 simply conveyed that Main Street be family of Caswell County. It’s been established “as it is now plowed.” reported that Stephen inadvertently Just dig over there, Morris had discovered a desirable means of curing essentially stated, and Durham’s early tobacco with charcoal. Main Street was born. Anderson re- Several historical accounts explain vealed a telling quote from that era. that Stephen had fallen asleep on the There were “exasperating questions job one night, and the curing fire among the men as to how they nearly went out. After awakening, proposed to people their newly made Stephen is believed to have rushed to town. But they builded [sic] better than grab some nearby charred wood to they knew, and every one of them throw on the dwindling blaze. Aburst lived to see their new laid street built of heat arose, and in a flash the on and occupied from end to end.” intensity turned the brown tobacco So, the primary street where MI into yellow tobacco. makes its home traces its ancestry to a man whose vision and efforts shaped Brightleaf Tobacco was born. downtown Durham’s layout, literally. In his 1925 book, The story of Afterward, according to long-time Durham: city of the new south, William Durham writer Jim Wise and others, Boyd wrote about the year 1858: “In Stephen apparently stated, about his that year a new and suggestive role in history: “… ’twas an accident. business was started.” It would be I commenced to cure it and it quite an understatement—the business commenced to git yallow.” was tobacco. This “accident” was not only According to Boyd, Robert Morris fortuitous, but entertaining as well. At came to town that year, and with his the time, Stephen reportedly pointed sons, “opened a factory in a small out: “…when it was cured, it was house situated on the property now ’musement for folks to come see it.” occupied by the Bull factory.” This was This newly constituted, just before the onset of the Civil War “accidental” product also benefited and also a turning point in the long era greatly from being grown in the light, in which Virginia tobacco had been sandy soils of the North Carolina- considered superior to North Virginia border region. Over the years, Carolina’s. the area’s brightleaf production The shift began unfolding about 20 techniques made great advances, and years before Morris arrived in word spread that this golden leaf Durham. Several sources recount the delivered a mild and particularly vital contributions made in the pleasant smoke. The tobacco was summer of 1839 by a slave named indeed special. Stephen who worked for the Slade Around the middle of the 19th

7 century, young Morris, a keen, industrious man, was already immersed in the variety store, liquor store, and hotel business in Orange County. In the book, Bull Durham Business Bonanza, authors B.W.C. Roberts and Snow L. Roberts wrote that Morris’ general store “carried exotic products such as French brandy, Madeira wine, Holland gin and Jamaican rum.” William Boyd wrote that Morris, after being licensed to “hawk and peddle goods” in Orange County, decided to try Durham out for size. He would bring his wife and six Bartlett Durham children with him. the town. Dr. Durham was a fine man Morris built his tobacco house next and when he was sober he was strong to the railroad, in the heart of the tiny and courageous. Everyone liked him.” village then known as Durham’s Robert Morris, however, was a Station, named after country physician businessman through and through. Bartlett Leonidas Durham. According Morris, along with his son Thomas and to Jim Wise’s account in Durham: A Mr. W.A. Wright of Virginia, created Bull City Story, in 1848 or 1849 Dr. “Best Spanish Flavored Durham Durham bought 100 acres in the Smoking Tobacco.” B.W.C. Roberts and vicinity of the current Durham Bull Snow Roberts wrote that, “South ballpark and the American Tobacco American tonka beans, which yielded complex. Soon, Wise wrote, “the a fragrance similar to that of vanilla, railroad men came to call, and so he were a key ingredient in the (Durham) gave them 4 acres of his flavoring.” land.” Columnist Wise reported in his Wise quoted one Thaddeus book that manufacturing for Morris Redmond, a Gettysburg veteran and and Wright basically consisted of son of William Pratt, in describing “thrashing dried and cured tobacco Bartlett Durham. Redmond, originally leaves into tiny shreds that could be of Redmond Grove in nearby packed and smoked in a pipe, perhaps Prattsburg, once wrote: “I knew Dr. adding a little flavoring of one kind or Bartlett Durham. He was a fine, portly another…” It was a humble start, but looking man. He was a jovial fellow. things surely didn’t stay that way. On moonlit nights he would get a Morris would be very prominent in group of boys together and serenade tobacco for several years. At its height, 8 his company produced some 300,000 Around 1865, members of the pounds of tobacco annually. Then, in Confederate Army in the area became 1862, Morris sold his primary business fast fans of John Green’s tasty tobacco to John R. Green. Green, his partners blend. Then, when Federals gathered and his successors with the creative, to mark General Johnston’s surrender high-energy W.T. Blackwell company, at nearby Bennett Place, they, too, would eventually take the tobacco heard about the fine tobacco. In turn, road right into the age of Bull Durham. soldiers decided to raid Green’s After W.A. Wright left the Morris operation. At first, it appeared concern to join the Confederate Army calamity had struck. in 1861, Dr. Richard Blacknall became William Boyd wrote about the Morris’s partner. But only a year later, surprising aftermath: “Apparently Mr. despite some success, the pair sold out Green was ruined, but so well did the to Green, who had relocated to soldiers (and students) appreciate the Durham from Person County. smoke from the Spanish Flavored As author William Boyd put it, Durham Tobacco that after their Green “had a feeling, a hunch, so to return to their homes orders began speak, that there was a future in the to pour in.” manufacture of tobacco.” Green The reputation of Durham’s believed Confederate soldiers, as well tobacco became known across the as all the college students who passed country. Boyd wrote that John Green through Durham’s Station, could would immediately sense another provide good promotion for an opportunity, a marketing opportunity. upgraded product. How could he make sure he could protect his product, as well as build a The reputation of Durham’s first-rate brand name and aura around it? Therein lies the story, perhaps as tobacco became known much legend as hard fact, of how across the country. Green’s tobacco turned into the Bull Durham brand. In a matter of months, demand for So, Boyd wrote, Green “rejected in Green’s brand grew rapidly. Boyd his buying all but the best grades of wrote of an unexpected exchange leaf, and, believing that in the future between Green and an unnamed smoking would supplant chewing, he fellow citizen. Boyd stated that the centered his effort on the manufacture man commented to Green: “Your of smoking tobacco.” friend, James R. Day, has a new bull; An unexpected event near the end why not have a picture of the bull and of the Civil War would play a sur- you on its back as your brand?” prising role in his company’s growth. As Boyd wrote, “That suggestion

9 was prophetic.” front of his factory. The rest is, as they Boyd reported that shortly say, history. afterward, while Green was eating a After marketing and manufacturing dish of fried oysters with his friend mavericks William Blackwell and John Y. Whitted in Hillsborough, Julian Carr took control of the product, Whitted pointed to a jar of Coleman’s there was no stopping Bull Durham. Mustard and mentioned, “There is a Boyd stated, “A great business was condiment that is, as you can see by established, and Durham achieved the label, manufactured in Durham, fame.… The Bull was painted on signs England. It bears the sign of a Durham throughout the land.” Famous people bull’s neck. Why not name your around the globe advertised their avid product Bull Durham Smoking use of the Bull. Tobacco and adopt a whole bull as a The town of Durham dramatically trademark?” expanded around the Bull’s legend Boyd wrote that Whitted went on and its success. to predict, “If you take my advice, I According to Boyd’s book, Bull predict as wide a market for your Durham smoking tobacco became product as this mustard has attained, such a phenomenon that a certain and if it should so prove your fortune rising manufacturer would remark, will be made and Durham will become at some point in the early 1880s, “My a great commercial center.” company is up against a stone wall. According to Boyd, John Green It cannot compete against the Bull. soon posted a sign of the new Something has to be done and quick. “tobacco” bull painted on sheet iron in As for me, I am going into the 10 cigarette business.” County. It said the families of soldiers The competitor looking for an edge were “without a mouthful of bread for against Bull Durham was James themselves or their children. Our Buchanan Duke, son of patriarch women do not ask for a mouthful of Washington Duke, founder of W. Duke meat and I think we ought to not let Sons & Co. The Duke family would them suffer for bread.” come to make its own history with its Author Jean Anderson said in an gigantic American Tobacco enterprise. interview, “Morris was indeed an Robert Morris’s historical impact interesting and influential person. I on Durham was not limited to his feel he’s somewhat neglected in that layout of Main Street or his unique we don’t hear much about him. role as the developer of early, Durham- However, the man was intimately based tobacco brands. As fledgling involved in the early development of overseers of the village, Morris and Durham.” others also helped fashion the local The man after whom Morris Street education system. Morris was one of was named can fairly be called one of the original trustees of the first school the founding forces of Durham, known as Durham Academy. linked to two of its most powerful Morris also purchased and began legacies: tobacco and education. Now, developing 200 acres of farmland in a Measurement Incorporated, community known as Pin Hook. Later, headquartered on Morris Street, has the neighborhood would be called become a force in modern day West Durham. It has been reported education as its testing and scoring that around 1877, Morris was also part programs help prepare the students of of an early group of men to sell land to local African-Americans; that area would become widely known as Hayti. The Hayti community evolved into an impressive and influential center of Durham’s cultural life and reputation. today for the challenges of tomorrow. Morris was quite an enterprising, caring, socially conscious man. At one Perhaps the first thing to know point, he would serve as Durham’s about Brodie Duke, namesake of Station tax commissioner; one of the another MI building, is that Brodie is office’s functions was to make sure the believed to have been pronounced military provided assistance to the B-r-o-a-d-i-e. It rhymes with bawdy, soldiers’ needy families. In Bull City and Brodie Duke was, on occasion, Business Bonanza, the authors bawdy enough. unearthed a letter from Morris to his Brodie Leonidas Duke took a risk government counterpart in Orange by being the first of Washington

11 Duke’s sons to try his hand at tobacco Brodie took chances in real estate, from a new location: in town. Around as well, and was a key figure in the 1869, Brodie reportedly told his dad he development of Trinity Park, Duke was headed to the “city” to make his Park, and much of immediate North way in tobacco. At the time, Durham Durham. He made significant had maybe 250 residents. If so, young investments in the burgeoning cotton Duke made 251, and he most certainly mill business—Brodie started Pearl was worth counting. Mills, named after his daughter and His move from the country would located on the land now occupied by prove pivotal. Duke Towers, the apartment and Brodie also took risks as the flam- condominium complex not far from boyant son of a straightlaced church MI’s headquarters. leader, as well as part of a titanic According to Jim Wise’s book, in family business to be called American 1909 Brodie aided African-American Tobacco. He was reckless with his students for years to come by donating money and paid dearly for it. Brodie a 20-acre parcel of land to James was long irresponsible with alcohol, Shepard. That gesture helped Shepard which took its toll. His dalliances with create the National Religious Training women made sensational headlines. School and Chautauqua on Fayetteville Street, the precursor to today’s North Brodie Duke and his wife at their mansion in Durham

12 Carolina Central University. Washington Duke, along with his Brodie Duke also played a financial brothers’ amazing acumen and role in supporting Durham’s religious ambition. Brodie was almost community, when he wasn’t flying in unavoidably caught in the middle of the face of its conventions. Ironically, a tumultuous, absurdly rewarding he reportedly once served as a time, and he evolved into a bold substitute Sunday school teacher. businessman and speculator, a The fine Italianate mansion Brodie reliable benefactor and in some ways built occupied part of the property a spectacular survivor. near where the Durham School of the According to documents at the Arts now sits, just across Duke Street Homestead Site, Brodie even dabbled from the Brodie Duke warehouse now in politics, running for the state housing segments of MI. legislature in the 1890s, where he lost Duke was, then, a complicated man a race to John W. Umstead, 2,422 votes brimming with smarts, passion, and to 1,936. mischief. And there are, it seems, The Durham Sun once reported that possible explanations for his mercurial, in October 1890, at a meeting of the uncertain streaks. Commonwealth Club, Brodie Duke First, Brodie spent nearly all of his bluntly exhorted the future city leaders early childhood without his mother, newly arrived in Durham: Mary. She reportedly died when he was about a year old. Numerous I tell you fellers that we sources say Brodie himself was not a strapping or particularly healthy can’t stick like the bark on a young man. Because he weighed only 96 pounds and was considered too tree - so damned tight it weak for combat, he became a guard at a Confederate prison camp. It was won’t come off. We’ve got tough, eye-opening work. Dale Coates, to be like the branches of manager of the Duke Homestead State Historic Site, has been quoted as the tree - we must expand – saying: “… he went through a lot here. He saw a lot in his teens, a lot we must make Durham that young people today would have bigger and we must put up difficulty handling.” Brodie Duke, though, was admired the coin if we expect to get as a man who chose to answer the bell over and over again. In some ways fate men to come here. forced his hand, partly due to the circumstances of his father,

13 buildings of its kind still in Durham Years before Brodie Duke built the and is now part of the downtown warehouse on Liggett Street, the young Brightleaf Historic District. tobacco explorer, according to Jim Local architecture observer Tom Wise, “bought an old, two-room house Miller said, “Brodie’s warehouse on Main Street. Downstairs was his spearheaded what I call stage one of factory; upstairs his storeroom and tobacco building architecture in bed.” From humble beginnings he Durham. The building is extremely rose. simple and straightforward. It’s a Wise reported that Brodie, at first, compression building with brick walls, “produced a brand of tobacco called built as high as you could go with Semper Idem (“Always the Same”), brick.” and then a second called Duke of Further, Miller said, “The windows Durham; meanwhile, he subsisted at are very small, because it wasn’t home on bacon, hoecake, and advisable to break up the brick. Brodie occasional molasses. In five years, also put in the chimney ventilation Brodie achieved some success, enough stack, which would become a to help convince Washington Duke trademark in Durham’s downtown and soon-to-be legendary sons Ben tobacco designs.” and James B. (Buck) to come to Miller said other companies that Durham. History books would later would follow also installed the focus on their stories, but Brodie had attention-getting stacks, even if they been the first and thus possibly the didn’t need them. bravest. Miller, in a booklet produced for In 1878, Brodie had his first real the Historic Preservation Society of warehouse built, the one MI purchased Durham, described the Brodie Duke and renovated. The original brown building as “fortress-like” and clearly brick structure was one of the oldest “erected to get the job done.” Brodie The Brodie Duke Building on Liggett Street Duke, Miller wrote, “had no resources to spare on frills.” Fortunately, Measurement Incorporated carefully restored the extraordinary hardwood flooring, which still creaks with age and tobacco tradition as MI employees travel on foot to and from their destinations. Official National Historic Register records describe Duke’s original section, section Aof the building, as:

14 moved into what had become an …constructed with interior 85,000-square foot building. supports of wood trusses, In a news story former Durham mayor Nick Tennyson praised the (with) thick exterior walls company’s commitment to downtown: of variegated brownish “There are a few people who are pink brick. The building is making some major investments. As those dots get connected, it starts to typical in its very plain blossom.” rectangular form, dis- MI president Hank Scherich spoke to Durham’s Herald-Sun about the tinguished only by rows of exacting efforts and standards applied narrow segmental arched to the renovation, which involved, window openings. among other things, restoring some 200 windows. He explained that baking powder was used to blast After Brodie Duke and his family several layers of paint from the merged their tobacco endeavors, Duke hallowed brick walls because leased the building back to the traditional sand blasting removed American Tobacco Trust. Some years portions of the old soft bricks. later, it was leased to Liggett and “The baking soda was flying,” Myers after the breakup of American Scherich said in an interview. Tobacco. Eventually, Liggett and Myers “Someone called the fire department purchased the building and converted because there was so much baking it to a smoking tobacco facility. soda coming out of the windows they In 1933, Liggett and Myers began thought it was on fire. We didn’t want adding to the building and constructed the bricks painted. We wanted to get two three-story wings and a one-story back to the brick.” loading platform. Eventually, the On the Brodie Duke third floor structure would be known for many today, test scorers now work in a room years as the SCT (Special Cut Tobacco) with 24-foot high ceilings, exposed building. Economic and environ- wooden rafters, and giant windows. mental problems would later lead to “We think it will be an excellent place the plant’s shutdown. to work,” Scherich once predicted. He In 2000, after buying the Brodie was right. Duke warehouse for nearly $1 million and undertaking a wholesale renovation project costing about $5 million, Measurement Incorporated

15 Despite his myriad travails and Let us pray very earnestly travels, Brodie reportedly still for Brodie. I used to know managed to die a millionaire. He had him before I became a also given away small fortunes. An obituary reminded readers “few Christian. financiers of the South have more charity and benevolence to their credit Looking back, that quote from a than the deceased. Year after year, he Methodist evangelist in 1897 has come made large contributions to schools, to define Brodie Duke, and not colleges and churches. Many poor without some good reason. Over the families of this city have been aided years, Duke’s exploits landed him on through his kindness.” Today, at 333 Liggett Street, Measurement Incorporated occupies the place where Brodie Duke first made some of the money he would bestow on the town’s needs and missions. His legacy of civic outreach, a pronounced trademark, is a path also followed by MI. A friend of Brodie Duke, Col. Al Fairbrother, wrote in the Greensboro Record after Duke’s death: Brodie L. Duke Brodie Duke had lived more front pages from the Bull City to New York City. varied stories than a dozen “Brodie’s private life left most speculative romances something to be desired,” said could invent. His life had historian Jean Anderson. “He was a been tempestuous...a con- rough-hewn diamond. His life wasn’t managed well, but I don’t know if it tinuous picture of events, was deliberate or...bad luck. But I think and in all his ups and downs his heart was in the right place.” he ever remained the same In 1919, Brodie Duke’s energetic, complicated life ended. He lived optimistic, happy, contented enough for three men. Local essayist man. Wyatt Dixon wrote: “While he en- countered many difficulties and some He is certainly a man worth remembering, reverses, his hand was effectively felt one who took the measure of life and in the promotion of Durham’s best lived it fully. interests. He had...pride in the town.” 16 structure burned, Imperial Tobacco began its extraordinary construction project in 1916. It would take several In the earliest years of the last years to finish. According to a century, the Fallon & Martin prize- description provided in papers linked house was one of Durham’s earliest to the National Register of Historic and best-known. “Prizehouse” was a Places, the Imperial’s Romanesque common name for tobacco storage revival style: warehouses. The business occupied the property now dominated by the Imperial Building at 215 Morris Street. …features elaborate brick- Younger people may remember the work and dozens of seg- building as the D.C. May building. The mental arched windows. highly respected decorating company located its headquarters there in 1965, The heaviest decoration which helped bolster the landmark occurs at the cornices status for businesses on the block. featuring corbelled pen- Measurement Incorporated dants of various lengths; purchased the property and the rounded parapets at the building in 2003 and has restored corners and gabled it to its previous luster. MI uses the imposing structure for its growing parapets in between; and work force. The building comprises inlaid squares and dia- some 108,000 square feet and, according monds of white stone. The to MI architectural consultant Tim entrance is...supported by Hoke, is “one of the most unusual Tuscan columns with buildings downtown. It has a remarkable character of its own.” entablature blocks. Architect Frank De Pasquale believes the Imperial building is “the most beautiful historic building” in Historic ironwork Durham, intentionally designed in its detail at Imperial grandeur to rival or even surpass the Building entrance aesthetic attractiveness of the Duke warehouses. “Imperial wanted to make a statement,” De Pasquale said in an interview. After the original Fallon & Martin

17 History aficionado Tom Miller believes not a trivial sum. The American the Imperial structure is more aptly tobacco market was becoming critical viewed as “Wrenesque,” after for Imperial; the Durham location Christopher Wren. Wren was a famed would become one of the British com- British scholar, scientist, astronomer, pany’s chief outposts in this country. and architect who became celebrated “Remember,” Tom Miller said, “the in the mid-1600s. Some of Wren’s U.S. was not yet a world empire. The schematic and architectural thinking Dukes and American Tobacco were helped inform the redesign of London aiming right at the British. I think after the Great Fire of 1666. Imperial chose Durham to make a bold Miller considers the building part strike against the aims of American of the Jacobean period of classical Tobacco and the upstart Dukes.” brick architecture, which makes it both As a further challenge to the distinct and especially noteworthy on Dukes, Imperial’s bold slogan became the Durham landscape. “Don’t Buy American.” MI has also restored the classic At the beginning of the 20th Imperial name. century, , who MI purchased the massive building had been building American Tobacco for $3.95 million and spent more than into a gargantuan American monopoly, $4 million on renovations. That’s quite had his sights set on tobacco a premium over what Fallon & Martin companies in Britain. Individual received from British-based Imperial British companies, powerful as they were, could not fight American Tobacco on their own. Buck Duke reportedly once said, “If John D. Rockefeller can do what he is doing in oil, why should I not do it in tobacco?” There was no reason, and Duke’s new British competitors knew it. Their concerns came to a head when, as it was reported, James Duke arrived in Liverpool one day in 1901, walked into Ogden’s factory, and bought it on the The Imperial Building, circa 1920 spot. Then, according to other Tobacco around the turn of the accounts, Duke ventured into the John century. The Durham Sun reported that Player & Sons company and Imperial paid Martin $16,000 for the announced with great bravado, “Hello, prizehouse in 1903. boys. I’m Duke from New York, come For that era, though, $16,000 was to take over your business.” 18 In response, in December 1901, 13 growers. Tobacco historian Nannie family-run British concerns joined Tilley wrote of the words uttered by a forces to create the Imperial Tobacco tobacco association official in Virginia, Company of Great Britain and Ireland. upon hearing of the monumental After a series of price wars and bonus agreement. American and Imperial, the schemes, Imperial decided to fight official stated, “had been strong American Tobacco on its home turf, competitors upon warehouse floors for in America. It would form its U.S. the raw material…producing a headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. condition which was desirable and Soon after, faced with an impending, highly satisfactory for the farmer.” brutal trade war, the two companies The deal between the two giants, reached an agreement. Imperial would however, called off “competition and limit its caus[ed] a American big decline operations to in prices.” leaf buying Imperial for its other eventually markets, and bought American Durham- Tobacco based Fallon surrendered & Martin its hold on outright, and the British company, Ogden’s, and installed William Fallon as the first ceased activities in Great Britain and manager of its Durham branch. Ireland. In 1911, the American Tobacco The result was B.A.T., the British company was dissolved in an antitrust , which agreement and split into four formalized the understanding and companies; a new, smaller entity was created marketing and financial allowed to continue marketing some cooperation between the two Imperial brands in the United States, behemoths. According to the book Sold and Imperial could sell its other American! The First Fifty Years, after the brands here without restrictions. agreement was struck, James B. Duke According to The First Sixty Years: cabled his father, Washington, from the A History of the Imperial Tobacco Carlton Hotel in London’s Pall Mall. Company...in the United States of America The message read: “I have just by Sue V. Dickinson, the Durham plant completed a great deal with the British began full-scale operations in 1918, manufacturers, covering the world, to and a second drying machine was the great benefit to our companies.” installed in 1919. It was not good news for tobacco

19 Then, Dickinson wrote: Carolina. Imperial eventually diversified far outside tobacco, with Since 1948, when the plant major interests in food, hotels, plastics, packaging, and electronics. began repairing burlap In 1965, Imperial sold its building sheets for all the Com- in Durham to the D.C. May company. pany’s branches, it has In the century’s early years, Mr. May launched the company as a painting operated throughout the and decorating contractor and dis- year. The manufacture of tributor of paints and sundry items. D.C. May, according to W.C. Dula new sheets and waterproof in the book Durham and Her People, had linings for hogsheads was started serving an apprenticeship as a added to these operations painter at age 16, in 1899. His first significant work in the painting in 1950. New super jet industry was on the Golden Belt plant. drying machines were According to Dula, May eventually “developed a contracting business installed in 1956 and 1958, generally considered one of the largest respectively. in the South. The finest homes in Durham, as well as the largest In 1955, Imperial developed an industrial and commercial plants, were advanced research lab in Durham, painted and appointed by his firm. reportedly “the only full-scale They included the Washington Duke laboratory in the United States dealing hotel, and many with the redrying of tobacco.” buildings at the University of North According to Dickinson’s company Carolina.” history, researchers in Durham studied Dula wrote of May: “[I]n 1903 he “operational techniques; processing, to painted the spire of the old Trinity determine the various merits of re- Methodist Church, using no drying techniques and equipment; the equipment other than a rope chemical and physical effects of supporting his body.” Dula also processing on the characteristics of reported that May was well known as tobacco; and statistical surveys of a lay leader and preacher active in operations.” well-attended revival meetings across This research work was said to be the area. pioneering in the field at the time. After a merger with another For many years, Imperial would company in 2003, D.C. May now also maintain plants in Wilson, Rocky operates under the name Trimaco Mount, Greenville, and Kinston, North and is headquartered at the Meridian

20 Another commercial and cultural tale involving MI’s triangle of history on and around Morris Street bears an indirect connection to tobacco. Right around the time American Tobacco was achieving great sales success and societal influence, in the decade before the anti-trust breakup in 1911, a small drug company in the heart of Original DC May sign on the Imperial Building Durham’s Five Points was creating its own legend. Business campus in southeastern It started quietly and humbly, but Durham. It is run by one of D.C. May’s things would change. grandsons, David May. A certain pain-relieving product There is another intriguing piece of coming out of the cozy Bernard and information about the Imperial Council drug store was swelling in Building. In 1987, the makers of the sales during the early 20th century, as great baseball film Bull Durham shot more and more workers raced to locker-room scenes inside. For weeks, Durham to take advantage of the cables snaked out of the cavernous tobacco money train. In time, Germain structure as actors Kevin Costner, Tim Bernard and Commodore T. Council Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and others used the initials from their last names plied the acting trade in the same areas to form BC. The BC headache powder where tobacco workers had once the pair manufactured and marketed practiced their art and produced their became a savior for the hundreds of product. men toiling for steady, steamy hours in But those stars were not the only the Durham tobacco factories. people getting their faces on film; The powder would become famous scores of MI employees also appeared around the South, almost as much a in crowd shots during the movie. The part of everyday living as the cigarette. movie, set mostly at the old Durham Soldiers returning home from World Athletic Park, adds another dose of War I also tried BC and began history to a place now open for a new spreading the word. BC was becoming round of accomplishment. not only a populist pain reliever but a phenomenon. In response to the exponential

21 growth, in 1928 BC built a brand new stranger who might have overheard. headquarters building at 423 Morris “But it was a name used totally out of Street, the building Measurement affection,” Tom Council said. He also Incorporated occupies today as its pointed out, “Employees, of course, official headquarters. called him Mr. Council.” Tom Council, grandson of BC Tom Council’s recollection is that Remedy co-founder Commodore BC’s lone lab stood high in the “C.T.” Council, building, like the turret at the top of a fondly remembered castle. When asked about the head- the man he called ache powder formula that would “Pop” and the become so popular, Council’s grand- building where his son said, “I really don’t know exactly family members what was in it. But people sure loved advanced the it, especially with a six-ounce coke.” fortunes of the BC would eventually begin company. “Pop was manufacturing tablets, too. At the quite a guy,” company’s 50th anniversary, Tom Council said. Council said, BC distributed a C.T. Council “Straightforward, promotional cigar box with a claim blunt, and very benevolent. Up until I saying the firm had produced enough was 10, I’d visit the building on tablets “to go around the earth, then Morris, with Pop’s office on one side at up and around the moon and back the top of the stairs, and my dad... again. Touching tablet to tablet.” working on the other side. I used to Writer Jim Wise fondly rampage through the place. The ladies remembered BC’s ability to impress, there would coo and cuddle me.” especially the attention it often Tom Council said that around the engendered from some of his northern time of the Great Depression, local college mates while Wise matriculated kids would often gather under Pop’s at Duke. office window during baseball games “I still remember having this at the DAP. His grandfather could see headache all night the ballgame from his office, and he’d long one night,” often yell to the kids what the score Wise commented, was or tell them about a big play. “and going down The grandson said Commodore to… the Student Council had a curious nickname. “A Union on West lot of his friends called him ‘Commie.’ ” Campus. I asked In the 1950s, at the onset of the Cold what they had for War, the nickname would sometimes a headache. They earn Council a glance or two from a gave me some BC. Germain Bernard 22 Boy, it knocked out the headache right serve their away and I was sold. I took BC and purposes, but the nothing else for years after that.” basic remedy was In his reminiscence, Wise added believed to be a this anecdote: “There was something concoction of so ‘uncool’ about that wrapper, that sodium bromide, powder, and the way you’d have to aspirin, anti- hurry a swig of whatever was handy pyrine, and to wash down the taste as fast as you acetanilide. could. I could feel some of the In the early supposedly more sophisticated Duke 1900s, Bernard kids around me saying, ‘Who the heck and Council began is that hillbilly?’” working together A “hillbilly” favorite or not, BC in Durham, and knocked down a headache south, residents began to north, east, and west. And for so many, hear that the pair BC still does—countless people had come up with continue to swear by it. a very effective, Bernard and Council rightfully Durham-bred received much acclaim for making BC form of the powder famous, but the actual origins powder. Customers came in droves. of the product launched from the Five Together, Bernard and Council were Points Drug Company appear to be well trained, poised to make their somewhat more complex. unexpected mark in pharmacy and A1967 story in the Herald-Sun pain relief around the world. carried this headline: “THE As with any monumental HEADACHE BUSINESS—And The enterprise, there are often varying Man Who Created a Remedy.” The claims to credit. In this case, some article quoted C.T. Council’s wife people believe that a portion of the saying that her husband always had credit for the BC formula should go to suffered bad headaches and had, in a country doctor named Archibald C. part, become learned in pharmacy to Jordan, or “A.C.,” as he was often find a cure for them. called when he wasn’t called Doc. This was during the period when After years as a physician who rode Dr. Isaac Manning, dean of the UNC his horse over ten square miles in Medical School, had reportedly Caldwell, North Carolina, dispensing developed one of the most popular medical care and delivering hundreds headache remedies around. Since there of babies, Dr. Archibald Jordan was no patent, other druggists decided to move his family to informally adapted the product to Durham. In 1904, he set up shop as a

23 physician in the offices above the grammarian who urged citizens and drugstore operated by Germain business professionals to learn how to Bernard and Commodore Council. write better. Jordan was also an alchemist. Professor Jordan’s wife, Jane, still a According to his daughter, Octavia, Durham resident, was contacted about who wrote a book about her family, the BC “bloodlines.” She said: “Oh, Jordan’s prescription for headaches yes, we all know my father-in-law A.C. “was so effective and so much in whipped up a remedy in his doctor’s demand that these two druggists office, and then said it was okay for asked permission of Dr. Jordan to start the pharmacists to patent it and sell it. marketing.” He didn’t ask for anything. That’s just Dr. Jordan is said to have willingly how he was.” given his permission, and immediately She added, good-naturedly, “Sure, “the prescription was placed on the we wish maybe we’d been able to market for sale…under the name B.C. enjoy some of the fruits of that Headache Powders.” invention!” Historian Jean Anderson also Tom Council indicated he had not reported in her book that Dr. Jordan’s heard the story about Jordan’s possible son, who also had the initials A.C., involvement in the creation of BC’s once confirmed his father’s connection headache remedy. “But it wouldn’t to the origins of BC Powder. The surprise me,” he said. younger Jordan would later become a Dr. Jordan’s home in Little River, very popular English professor at off Highway 57, is also a landmark Duke and a nationally prominent today. It is known as the Olive Branch Inn, a bed and breakfast. The house, The BC Remedy building, circa 1960s, now the site of Measurement Incorporated’s headquarters according to the National Historic

24 Register, is “the best-preserved and druggist for 60 most stylish example of the Italianate years, gaining his architecture style in rural Orange first exposure by County.” working in drug During Dr. Jordan’s time, the house stores as a child in was the central social institution of the 1888. He spent local Presbyterian Church. Dr. Jordan years as the owner- and his brother also had a pharmacy operator of the across the road from his house. One Durham Drug wonders whether the “miracle” Store. headache remedy that came to be Bernard also Archibald C. Jordan known as BC Powder may have first served as a long- been tinkered over and offered to time vice-president of BC Remedy. patients by a first-rate country doctor He died on March 28th, 1954, just two named Archibald Jordan, well before it days before his 80th birthday. Both made its debut in Durham. Germain Bernard and C.T. Council Upon Dr. Jordan’s death on June 7, were reportedly generous benefactors 1922, a cousin wrote, “I have never to the School of Pharmacy at the met a truer Christian than Dr. Arch C. University of North Carolina - Chapel Jordan. He was plain spoken, but an Hill. uncommon good man.” In 1967, Block Drug of New Jersey For his part, C. T. Council would purchased the BC Remedy Company. rise to become not only the highly The famed brand has, in a roundabout respected, nationally known president way, returned to the area of its roots: it of the BC Remedy Company, but also a is now owned by GlaxoSmithKline, president of the Durham Chamber of which has a major research and Commerce and the Depositors development center in Research National Bank, which became the Triangle Park. North Carolina National Bank. In the mid-1970s, a few years after His grandson, Tom, said Council BC changed hands, its headquarters was also a key member of the area building was used by CCB bank as an Board of Education, a very active operations center. According to Ron Kiwanian, and was instrumental in the Perkins, who worked at the bank’s development of the Durham YMCA. office on Morris Street, the nature of Council was also an active member of the business inside was not obvious to the Watts Street Baptist Church. routine passersby. Germain Bernard may hold the “We were counting and processing record for being the longest-standing millions of dollars a day,” Perkins said. pharmacist in Durham’s history. The And this was going on right next to Pitt County native was a registered the ballpark. “That’s not something

25 you wanted to advertise,” Perkins first anchor in the old tobacco district, said. where so much big business had been Frank De Pasquale, who designed conducted for so long. The move many properties for George Watts Hill would help generate additional of CCB, spoke about the 18-inch confidence in the neighborhood and security walls in the vault. The giant serve as a leading edge in an ongoing door that protected all the cash, resurgence, which now includes West checks, and securities in the basement Village, a sprawling, stylish residential area reportedly cost some $16,000 to and restaurant development. The manufacture. It was serious security. developer, Blue Devil Ventures, has Perkins said the work that went on done wonders with giant, historic in the operations center was central to tobacco structures in the immediate CCB’s everyday functioning, and there area. was plenty of pressure. He added, “BC A sharply rising demand for space may have manufactured headache eventually led Scherich and MI to powder, but we manufactured acquire and renovate the Brodie Duke headaches!” warehouse, then the Imperial Building De Pasquale would eventually do a short distance away. some early design work for significant It was almost by chance, then, that changes to the Morris Street building, MI’s headquarters and warren of but CCB decided in 1989 to move offices would wind up where they are those office functions to another downtown, in a position to greatly location. The building at 423 Morris influence the commercial comeback of Street sat idle for four years, until one the neighborhood. day in 1993 when Measurement “I’m proud of what we’ve done,” Incorporated president Hank Scherich Dr. Scherich said. “It’s great for MI stood outside one of the old Liggett & employees to work in such a Myers buildings he had been meaningful environment, and we considering as a new center for his know our expanding presence here has company. also helped make the area attractive The deal had just fallen through, and vibrant once again. It’s certainly a and as Scherich tells it, “The fellow I special feeling to have around the was standing with pointed down the offices.” hill toward the old bank operations Leaders seize the key opportunities center. He said, ‘Have you ever that sometimes arise serendipitously, thought about that building? It might and they make the most of them. be just what you’re looking for Measurement Incorporated has done downtown.’” exactly that in its corner of downtown Scherich decided to take a look. Durham, surrounded and enriched by Soon after, he bought the old BC so much history in its midst. building from CCB, and MI laid its 26 Acknowledgements:

Many people were instrumental in helping History in our Midst come to fruition. I thoroughly enjoyed the various collaborations, and I thank all of you. Particular recognition should go to: Nikki Williams and Jason Caselli for graphic design; Johnnie Cozart and Jason Caselli for photography; Mike Bunch, Steve Heavner, Margie McKelvy, and Amy Olson for editing; and Kirk Ridge, Lynn Richardson, Jim Wise, Dale Coates, and Tom Miller for research assistance, review, and perspective. Lynn Roundtree, a Durham area historian and writer, offered personal support with a steady hand throughout. It is my great pleasure to be associated with Measurement Incorporated and to tell some of its unique and unfolding story in these pages. Tom Gasparoli, Writer Photo Credits:

• Hank Scherich - John Elkins Photography • Robert F. Morris - Duke Special Collections • Bartlett Durham - Duke Special Collections • Bull Durham Ads - Duke Homestead State Historical Site • Brodie Duke Home - Duke Homestead State Historical Site • Brodie L. Duke - Duke Special Collections • Early Imperial Building - Durham County Library, North Carolina Collection • C.T. Council, Germain Barnard - Durham County Library • BC Remedy Building, Ads - GlaxoSmithKline • Archibald Jordan - State Library of North Carolina • Imperial Building Construction - Duke Homestead State Historical Site Bibliography:

• American Tobacco Company, Sold American! The first fifty years,1954 • Anderson, Jean Bradley, Durham County,, 1991 • Boyd, William K., The story of Durham: city of the new South,Duke University Press, 1925 • Dickinson, Sue V., The first sixty years: A history of the Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland), Limited, in the United States of America, 1902-1962, Whittet and Shepperson, 1965 • Dula, W.C., Durham and Her People, Seeman Printery, 1951 • Roberts, B.W.C and Snow L., Bull Durham Business Bonanza, Genuine Durham Press, 2002 • Wise, Jim, Durham: A Bull City Story, Arcadia Publishing, 2002 • Perry, Octavia Jordan, These Jordans Were Here, J. G. Stevenson, 1969 History in our Midst: Published 2005 Revised 2010 Workers pose on smokestack during construction of the Imperial Building, circa 1918

423 Morris Street • Durham, NC 27701 (919) 683-2413 • www.measinc.com