Right in front of you is a sprawling complex of multi-story red brick buildings with large arched windows and bold painted lettering announcing the Cotton Exchange.
This place is an absolute triumph of survival. By the 1970s, downtown Wilmington had deteriorated badly, and the city was actively bulldozing its waterfront. Demolition was much cheaper than renovation, so incredible historic warehouses were just being erased. But in 1974, two developers named J.R. Reaves and M.T. Murray stepped in to save this block from the wrecking ball, sparking a wave of architectural preservation that permanently changed the city. After visiting successful historic districts in places like Savannah and Charleston, they bought eight interconnected buildings for 242,416 dollars, which is roughly 1.5 million dollars today. They stripped away decades of grime to reveal giant forty-foot hand-hewn wooden beams and original walls made of stone ship ballast... the heavy rocks hauled up from the riverbank that we discussed at the First Baptist Church.
The centerpiece here is the Old James Sprunt Cotton Exchange. In 1919, the Sprunt family rebuilt their expansive cotton export business in a Neoclassic revival style. That means it was designed to look like an ancient Greek or Roman temple, using striking symmetry to project power and permanence. And it worked. By 1950, they claimed to be the largest exporter of cotton on the entire East Coast.
But James Sprunt’s legacy is deeply tangled in one of the darkest chapters we have talked about. During the 1898 Wilmington Massacre, a violent white supremacist coup overthrew the local government. Sprunt actually supported that supremacist mission. During the violence, hundreds of Black workers at Sprunt's cotton compress factory watched the smoke rising from the burning offices of the Daily Record, the local African American newspaper. While Sprunt reportedly worried about how the violence might affect his workforce, he stood on the side of the mob. Today, you will find a historical marker nearby honoring Sprunt's philanthropy, but there is absolutely nothing on these polished brick walls mentioning his role in 1898.
Before this was a beautifully restored shopping center, these individual structures lived wild, contrasting lives. The Bear Building was a three-story wholesale grocery until a hurricane and a fire literally ripped the top floor right off. And part of this footprint was once a notorious red-light district called Paddy’s Hollow. It was a muddy shantytown full of saloons, opium addicts, and gangs so vicious the police completely refused to go inside. A local church even tried setting up a mission right in the middle of it, but the rowdy crowds just shouted down the Sunday sermons.
The chaos only ended when a devastating fire wiped out the shantytown in 1886. Today, Paddy's Hollow survives as an Irish pub inside the exchange... and it allegedly comes with a ghost. Staff tell stories of a tall spirit with long curly black hair named Fred. Once, a terrified manager walked into a storage room, came face-to-face with him, and heard him politely ask, can I help you? She ran out and never came back.
Every brick here holds a story, from industrial giants to tragic violence and phantom guests. We are going to continue this theme of saving and repurposing history as we head to our next stop. The Alton Lennon Federal Building and Courthouse is just a seven minute walk from here.
