History of Washington Park's Development Companies
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Information from the National Register of Historic Places: Architects | Development Companies | Residents | History of Winston-Salem | Ludlow's Plan | The Park | Streetcars
With the beginning of the Depression in 1929, construction slowed in Washington Park as it did throughout most of North Carolina. Fortunately, most of the neighborhood's commercial establishments were owned rather than mortgaged so few were lost. Deed abstracts, however, show a large number of houses passing into the ownership of banks, mortgage and real estate concerns. Even so, Winston-Salem was not hit as hard as elsewhere. Catherine Bishir notes, '... with millions of unemployed Americans smoking cigarettes, Reynolds and other tobacco companies thrived.
In 1931 Fortune magazine celebrated the firm's status as 'America's most profitable tobacco concern,' with profits of some $300 million a year."' The fortunes did not pass easily to Reynolds's employees, but there were jobs here. After 1933 relief funds helped the construction industry to recover. Two stone and frame pavilions were constructed in the park in the 1930S although they apparently were not WPA projects.
Walter Lindsay was one who sailed through the Depression, although Cicero Lowe did not. Lindsay reportedly bought Lowe's Classical Revival mansion at 204 Cascade during the Depression for $12,000. He was plant superintendent at RJR's plant in Richmond, Va. When that plant was closed Lindsay was returned to Winston-Salem where he worked without a cut in pay until he took over after the death of the Winston-Salem plant superintendent.
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