Children heard all kinds of stories!

That's what Harvey Pendergrass says. Harvey is part of the gigantic workforce in the restoration of the American Tobacco Historic District. He is an electrician for one of the sub-contractors.

Harvey's father was the fix-it man in the Fowler Building for forty years. He carried a tool pouch with him wherever he went and was a mechanic on stand-by whenever anything needed fixing.

Perhaps the most significant memories Harvey has of his father's career as the "fix-it man" are the stories his father told. Harvey says, "Children of the long-time workers in the tobacco factory were told all kinds of stories by their parents. As kids, they believed about anything they heard. I remember being told about the "old bull."

According to Harvey, legend has it that workers told stories about an actual bull being kept in a pen on the factory premises back in the days of Bull Durham Tobacco. Children were told that if they grew up to work in the factory, they would have to become part of the crew cleaning up the bullpen. In essence, that meant they would have to shovel a lot of bull leftovers.

Walking over the acres and acres of buildings, discovering the tunnel connecting the Lucky Strike Building with the courtyard of the Bull Building, the tunnel connecting the Noell Building with the Lucky Strike building, I have fantasized about finding skeletons - of not just stories - but of the actual people who made up the stories.

Cruising the complete circuit of these buildings on a weekly basis has made me conscious of all the stories that these walls and relics have to tell. I keep saying that old saying, "If these walls could talk!"

For people like Harvey Pendergrass and Gideon Lecrest, with parents or grandparents who spent decades working shifts in the American Tobacco factory, working as part of the force to restore these buildings has to be a unique spiritual experience.

There is a human history to this manufacturing complex that produced so many cigarettes for so many consumers, especially during the great war years of the last century. Some of that history is in the folklore that has been passed down through the generations.

A real "Durham bull" kept in a pen within the factory complex? Who's to say it didn't happen?

People like Harvey Pendergrass, a part of the workforce generating a new use for these factory walls, with a direct connection to the workforce of the factory years, have more stories to tell.