Old Town Street: How Trade Street Got Its Name — and Five Different Lives

TL;DR

• Trade Street was originally "Old Town Street," the wagon road out to Bethabara — it was never named for trade.
• The same five downtown blocks have been a tobacco market, a feed-store strip, a failed 1970s pedestrian mall, and today's arts district.
• 53% of the district's buildings went up in the 1920s — the street is essentially one preserved decade.
• The 1970–80 pedestrian mall failed because closing the block to cars killed the foot traffic it was meant to boost.
• Listed on the National Register in 2002 as the Downtown North Historic District (46 buildings, ~20 acres).

A wagon road. A tobacco market. A feed-store strip. A failed pedestrian mall. An arts district. Same five blocks, over and over.

Trade Street wasn't named for trade. It was originally Old Town Street — the road out to Bethabara, the Moravians' first settlement, back when Salem was the new town. The name changed later, once tobacco farmers started hauling wagons to the warehouses north of Fourth.¹

That's the pattern for the whole street: it gets renamed by whatever it's currently useful for.

1. The tobacco years

Winston was created in 1849 on land Salem sold for a county seat, and it simply extended Salem's existing street grid north — which is why Trade, Liberty, Main and Cherry still run the length of downtown.

Then tobacco hit. In 1872, Major T. J. Brown opened the town's first tobacco auction house. That year, Branson's Business Directory listed one tobacco manufacturer in Winston. By 1877 there were fourteen. The railroad arrived in 1873; R. J. Reynolds said he moved down from Virginia in 1874 to be near it.

By 1890, Sanborn fire maps show Trade between Fourth and Sixth as almost wall-to-wall factories, warehouses and leaf houses. Period photos show both Trade and Main choked with covered wagons — one 1890 booklet claimed up to 500 wagons a day rolled into county warehouses.²

Not one building from that 1890 map still stands.³

2. The workingman's downtown

Fourth Street got the banks, the department stores and the money from Millionaire's Row. Trade Street got the farmers.

The National Register nomination is direct about it: north of Fifth was never part of the flashy commercial core. It was feed and seed stores, hardware, groceries, machine shops, garages — the stuff you buy after you've sold your crop.³

The addresses still tell it:

Address	What it was
527–533 N. Trade	Oldest survivor, c. 1907. Groceries below, the Winston Hotel (later the McClenahan) above.
537–541 N. Trade	1923. Farmer's Cash Feed and Seed, then Piedmont Feed and Seed.
600 N. Trade	Cox's Seed Store, c. 1922–1955.
601 N. Trade	Townsend Hardware from 1922, then Pleasant's Hardware into the 1970s.
516 N. Trade	Brown-Rogers-Dixson, 1928 — limestone, sunburst panels, genuinely modern for its moment.

Even the bank followed the crop: Wachovia opened a branch at 201 W. Fifth in 1919 specifically to serve farmers coming to the Trade Street warehouses. It closed and moved to Fourth Street in 1980.³

53% of the district's buildings went up in the 1920s. That's why the street reads as one coherent snapshot — it's essentially a single decade, preserved by neglect.³

3. The collapse

• 1930 — Winston-Salem loses its rank as North Carolina's largest city to Charlotte. It never gets it back.
• 1930s — Construction stops. Only five buildings in the district date to the decade.
• 1952 — The Piedmont Tobacco Sales Warehouse is demolished for storefronts and a parking deck. Phillips marks this as the end of the district's period of significance.³
• Nov. 17, 1969 — Brown's Tobacco Warehouse on North Trade burns, taking nearby businesses with it. The last piece of the tobacco trade on the street is gone.³

4. The pedestrian mall (1970–1980)

On August 3, 1970, the 400 block of North Trade closed to traffic to be rebuilt as a brick-paved pedestrian mall. Ribbon cut August 4. Pedestrian malls were the urban-renewal fashion of the era.⁴

By 1976 a newspaper headline was calling it a "downhill road to ghost town."⁴

Rawls's diagnosis is worth keeping: with no cars, customers had to park elsewhere and walk in — so they stopped coming. Foot traffic fell instead of rising. The block became a hangout, and shoppers avoided it.¹

The city reopened Trade from Fourth to Fifth in 1980. The businesses didn't come back.¹

5. The artists — and why the failure mattered

Empty, cheap, structurally sound brick buildings with big storefront windows are exactly what artists need and almost never get in a healthy downtown.

Per DADA's own history, artists began taking real estate around Sixth and Trade in the early 1980s. Piedmont Craftsmen — founded 1963, now at Trade and Sixth — anchored it with real credibility. DADA organized in 1995 to formalize the district (some local accounts say 1998). Its 1st Friday Gallery Hop, 7–10 p.m., has run every first Friday, all twelve months, ever since.⁵

Then the perfect detail: in 1997, as cigarette vending machines were being decommissioned nationwide, Winston-Salem artist Clark Whittington refurbished one, filled it with his own photographs, and set it up in a coffee shop at a dollar a pull. The owner refused to give it back. That became Art-o-mat, now a few hundred machines worldwide — and the original lives at Delurk Gallery on Trade Street.⁶

A cigarette machine that sells art, in the city Reynolds built, on the street where the tobacco wagons lined up.

In 2002, the area was listed on the National Register as the Downtown North Historic District — 46 contributing buildings, about 20 acres.³

6. The street after dark

Nightlife is the oldest continuous thing here. Farmers who hauled a wagon into town needed a bed and an evening — hence the hotel rooms above 527–533, the Twin City Cafe, the Piedmont Candy Kitchen, and Trade Street Billiards, which opened in 1947 in a building put up on cleared warehouse ground.³

The proof is at 632 N. Trade, a terra cotta block building barely wider than a hallway. Restaurant from the early 1930s to the mid-1940s. Bar from the late 1940s through at least the mid-1950s. Art studio by 2002. And since 2003, the Silver Moon Saloon.³

Roughly seventy-five years of drinks at one address, with a gallery intermission.

Across the street, Single Brothers (627 N. Trade) is named for the Single Brothers' House in Old Salem — about as Winston-Salem as a bar name gets.⁷ At the top of the street, past the MLK Jr. Drive intersection, the big warehouse held a relocated Ziggy's from 2011 until it closed in February 2016, then reopened in 2018 as The Ramkat — 11,670 square feet, 1,000 capacity, co-owned by promoters Richard Emmett and Andy Tennille with Bryan Ledbetter. Co-owner Tennille told WFMY the name comes from the neighborhood itself: Industry Hill, once packed with tobacco warehouses.⁸

A music hall in an old warehouse, named for the warehouse district, at the north end of the street the warehouses built.

(Bar scene turns over fast — check before you go.)

What to notice when you walk it

• Tile pent roofs at 537–541 and 629–633 N. Trade — the little clay overhangs above the second-floor windows.
• Sunburst panels on 516 N. Trade.
• Stepped parapets everywhere. Nearly 40% of district buildings are single-story; the parapet was how you got presence.
• The round carriage arch at 527–533, the oldest building standing.
• The parking lots. Most of them are where the warehouses were.

Wagon road, tobacco market, feed-store strip, failed mall, arts district. Given the pace, it'll be something else again. The brick doesn't seem to mind.³

FAQ

Why is it called Trade Street in Winston-Salem?

Trade Street wasn't named for commerce. It was originally Old Town Street — the road out to Bethabara, the Moravians' first settlement. It was renamed later, after tobacco farmers began hauling wagons to the warehouses north of Fourth Street.

What is the Downtown Arts District on Trade Street?

It's the arts district that grew up around Sixth and Trade after artists began taking over cheap, empty brick buildings in the early 1980s. The Downtown Arts District Association (DADA) organized in 1995 and runs the monthly 1st Friday Gallery Hop. The area was listed on the National Register in 2002 as the Downtown North Historic District — 46 contributing buildings across about 20 acres.

What was the Trade Street pedestrian mall?

In August 1970, the 400 block of North Trade closed to cars and was rebuilt as a brick pedestrian mall, a popular urban-renewal idea at the time. It failed — a 1976 headline called it a "downhill road to ghost town" — and the street reopened to traffic in 1980.

What is Art-o-mat and where did it start?

Art-o-mat is a refurbished cigarette vending machine that dispenses small artworks. Winston-Salem artist Clark Whittington made the first one in 1997, filling it with his own photographs. There are now a few hundred machines worldwide, and the original lives at Delurk Gallery on Trade Street.

What is The Ramkat on Trade Street?

The Ramkat is an 11,670-square-foot, roughly 1,000-capacity music venue at the north end of Trade Street, in a former tobacco warehouse. The space held a relocated Ziggy's from 2011 until early 2016 and reopened as The Ramkat in 2018. The name comes from Industry Hill, the old warehouse district it sits in.

What is the oldest building on North Trade Street?

527–533 N. Trade, built around 1907. It had groceries below and the Winston Hotel (later the McClenahan) above, and still shows a round carriage arch.

Footnotes

1. Molly Grogan Rawls — Winston-Salem Time Traveler, with photographs from the Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection. The street's original "Old Town Street" name and the diagnosis of why the 1970s pedestrian mall failed. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Forsyth County Public Library — North Carolina Room blog. Period photographs of Trade and Main lined with covered tobacco wagons. ↩

3. Laura A. W. Phillips — National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Downtown North Historic District (2002, NRHP Ref. 02001669). The district's building inventory, dates and addresses, the 1920s construction share, the tobacco-era history, the period of significance, the 2002 listing, and the architectural details. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

4. Winston-Salem Journal photo archive — "The rise and fall of the Trade Street Mall." The 1970 pedestrian-mall conversion and its decline. ↩ ↩²

5. Downtown Arts District Association (DADA) — district history. Artists arriving in the early 1980s, Piedmont Craftsmen, DADA's 1995 formation, and the monthly 1st Friday Gallery Hop. ↩

6. Our State — coverage of Winston-Salem arts, including Clark Whittington's Art-o-mat. ↩

7. Visit Winston-Salem — Trade Street nightlife, including Single Brothers and the Silver Moon Saloon. ↩

8. WFMY News 2 — coverage of The Ramkat, including co-owner Andy Tennille on the name's origin in the Industry Hill warehouse district. ↩