The R.J. Reynolds Statue, Winston-Salem, Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

The R.J. Reynolds Statue stands in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina, near the corner of Second Street NW and North Main Street. It depicts R.J. Reynolds, the man whose tobacco company grew in this city and shaped its fortunes. The statue is a good starting point for understanding how tobacco built Winston-Salem.

The story behind it

Reynolds is the name on the statue, but the story of the region's tobacco wealth begins with Stephen, an enslaved blacksmith in North Carolina who also looked after the tobacco curing on the farm where he worked. As the story is told, he dozed off while tending the curing fire and woke to find it nearly out. With rain keeping him from fetching more wood, he threw charcoal from his forge onto the fire instead.

The heat flared and the leaf turned a golden yellow. Stephen feared he had spoiled the batch, but he had stumbled on a way of curing tobacco with high heat that brought out its sweetness, especially in Carolina-grown leaf. The result became known as bright leaf tobacco, and the boom that followed transformed the region and made a number of men very wealthy. Reynolds was one of them, building a company in Winston that became a giant of the industry.

What to look for

• Take in the figure of Reynolds himself, his pose and clothing, and think about how he wanted to be seen as a businessman.
• Look for any plaque or inscription on or near the base, which tells you how the city chose to remember him.
• Notice the downtown buildings around the statue, since this is the streetscape that tobacco money helped create.
• Think of Stephen and the charcoal fire while you stand here, because the story of bright leaf starts with him, not with the man in bronze.

Tips for your visit

• The statue is on a public street, so you can see it from outside at any time. A short stop of ten to fifteen minutes is plenty.
• Daylight is best for reading any inscriptions and for looking up at the surrounding buildings.
• It sits in the middle of downtown, so cafes, shops and other sights are an easy walk away.
• Wear comfortable shoes, because the best way to understand the area is to keep walking and see what else the tobacco years left behind.

See it on a quest

Highlights of Winston-Salem: A Tobacco Trail is a good way to see this statue. You reach it on foot as one stop of a longer route through downtown, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle right in front of what you are looking at. The theme fits the story here, since tobacco is what the statue is all about. One ticket covers the whole group, and you can start whenever you like with no guide and no set departure time.