They are now the two most intact remnants of Madison's tobacco industry, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Several firms started packing leaf tobacco in Madison about 1880: Klauber & Kohner, Mr. H. Grove, and Sutter Brothers.

[4] The American Tobacco Company had roots in 1874 North Carolina, where Confederate veteran Washington Duke and his sons started a tobacco-processing factory.

The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad sold American Tobacco a strip of land along its track at Doty Street, which was then called Clymer St., in a mixed neighborhood small houses, industrial buildings, and coal yards.

The northwest end is topped with a stepped parapet with corbelled brickwork, shown in the photo.

The sides of the building were broken by loading doors facing the railroad spurs that ran alongside.

[4] In March 1900 the Wisconsin Tobacco Reporter described early operations at the warehouse: The American Tobacco company presents a busy scene in West Madison on the St. Paul tracks opposite the Findlay warehouse.

The tobacco comes in from Dane and adjoining counties in bunches, and the business of the girls is to sort it according to length.

There is also a vast change in the sanitary conditions of the warehouses of today as compared with those of years ago.

The mammoth structure of the American Tobacco company at West Madison is an instance in point.

[2] The warehouses were placed on the NRHP in 2003 because they are the best intact representatives of the once-important tobacco industry in Madison.