New book details history of burley tobacco in WNC and east Tennessee

Burley tobacco revolutionized the industry in east Tennessee and Western North Carolina. Agricultural experts Billy Yeargin and Christopher Bickers take a nostalgic look at the historic rise of burley tobacco and its gradual decline in A History of Burley Tobacco in East Tennessee & Western North Carolina, published by The History Press.

What started from two farmers planting white burley in Greeneville became an agricultural revolution that significantly changed crops, production and quality. Burley transformed the tobacco industry with new cultivation techniques and a shift from dark and flue–cured tobacco. By the 1990s, however, burley tobacco production in the region had drastically declined. It’s a tradition that few local farmers still practice.

W.W. “Billy” Yeargin Jr. is an international authority on tobacco who lives in Selma, N.C. Yeargin has also authored North Carolina Tobacco: A History and Remembering North Carolina Tobacco. He graduated from the University of North Carolina and earned a master’s degree from Duke University. 

Christopher Evans Bickers is an independent journalist living in Raleigh. He specializes in agricultural reporting, especially on tobacco, and has been published in such magazines as Southeast Farm Press, Progressive Farmer and Tobacco International. Born in Greenville, S.C., he was raised in Memphis and Knoxville, Tenn., and graduated from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville), where he majored in history. He received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. He currently writes and publishes Tobacco Farmer Newsletter.

The History Press, based in Charleston, S.C., specializes in history titles, with a mission of “preserving and enriching community by empowering history enthusiasts to write local stories for local audiences.” Since 2004, it has published almost three thousand local and regional history titles.