Cigarette Manufacture Ends in Durham

The Liggett factory in downtown Durham made its last pack Saturday.

Starting Sunday, company employees report for work at the company's new factory, 25 miles away in Mebane.

Liggett has been moving workers and machinery to Mebane since February, leaving only a skeleton crew in Durham.

About 220 factory jobs are leaving Durham, but the corporate headquarters will remain in the Bull City, with about 60 corporate executives, salespeople and printing plant workers..

Yesterday's move ends nearly 150 years of tobacco history that put Durham on the map along with the names of its cigarettes, Bull Durham and Chesterfield.

Liggett now primarily makes generic cigarettes and has less than two percent of the U.S. cigarette market.