"Tobacco barns were once a ubiquitous sight along rural Piedmont roads, but that's changing fast," writes Hardin.
"The N.C. State Historic Preservation Office estimates that, at tobacco's peak, perhaps a half-million of the barns dotted the state's landscape.
"The current figure might be a tenth of that, with thousands being lost each year, according to the office. ...
The old wooden barns once hummed with activity around harvest time, when farmhands packed them full of bundled tobacco. The tobacco would be heated to cure in the barn until it reached a golden-hued perfection and was ready for sale.
Eventually, larger metal barns replaced the old wooden barns, many of which were left to rot.
Catherine Bishir, an architectural historian with Preservation North Carolina, said the barns tell an important part of the state's agricultural history.
"They're the kind of thing that you take for granted until there's hardly any left," she said. "They're a vanishing breed."
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