The American Tobacco Company was founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke as a merger between a number of tobacco manufacturers including Allen and Ginter. Akin to the domination of Standard Oil in the same era, the American Tobacco Company dominated the industry by acquiring the Lucky Strike Company and over 200 other rival firms. The company built processing plants and warehouses in Durham, North Carolina. Antitrust action begun in 1907 against the American Tobacco Company broke the company in 1911 into several major companies: American Tobacco Company, R. J. Reynolds, Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Company, Lorillard, and British American Tobacco. American Tobacco left Durham in 1987.
A section of the East Coast Greenway, known as the American Tobacco Trail, runs along a railroad bed abandoned by the American Tobacco Company in the 1980s.
