![[RMIMC office.png]] The Rocky Mount Improvement and Manufacturing Company was run by Northern businessmen brothers [[John H. Logan]] and George Logan from Allegheny City, PA. The Company was controlled by the wealthy Logan and Lyon families, progressive republican capitalists from Pennsylvania, who were the largest developers of Rocky Mount during the Fusion decade.^{[^34]}  **Construction on the Wilson Prize House began prior to April 28, 1892(1) on the north west corner of Goldleaf Street and Atlantic Avenue. A month later the footprint of the Wilson Prize House, still under construction, and Logan’s Prize House(2) on East Rail Road Street were both designated on a subdivision map recorded for the Rocky Mount Improvement And Manufacturing Company, John H. Logan, Trustee.(3)  At this time C E Wilson also owned a Tobacco Stemmery on Falls Road which backed up to the Thorp and Ricks Stemmery on Church Street(4)      The RM I AM development plan for the N E Quadrant of Rocky Mount’s original one mile square corporate limits(5) was progressive - to extensively promote a New South manufacturing town while arranging for new commerce and industry including the American Tobacco Company(6) all in close proximity to the best residential area in town, located on high rolling land near the river that “affords advantages to be found nowhere else in Rocky Mount.”(7) The plan included a school, church and the Riverside Park and Boulevard  - predicted to be the favorite spot of the local youth where “many a loving tale will be whispered into not unwilling ears…”(8)  In the fall of 1891, the Logans donated 6 lots on Goldleaf Street for a Presbyterian Mission Church (Mt. Pisgah)(9) and for the Logan High School.(10)  George B Logan, a Union Army veteran from Allegheny City, Pennsylvania and the older brother and business partner of John H Logan, was also a member of the Freedmen’s Board of the Presbyterian Church, USA(11)       By 1920, the still growing and prospering but now forcefully segregated African American community located between Thomas Street and Grand Avenue along Albemarle, Atlantic and Penn Avenue was called CrossTown.(12)  Ten years prior and a few blocks further east, a 1910 re-subdivision of the RMIAM property was platted and recorded as Logan Place(13)        But back in the year 1892, Mr K.W. Coghill, well known Henderson, N C architect and builder(14) who in the late 1880’s made construction of brick tobacco warehouses and leaf factories one of his specialties(15) contracted for the Wilson leaf factory job. He temporarily relocated to Rocky Mount with his wife(16) to build the Prize House - which he completed prior to March 22,1893.(16) The building's cornerstone reads “K.W. Coghill./Contractor and Builder./1892”      Two years later, on May 13,1895, James B. Duke’s American Tobacco Company purchased the “lot containing about 2 6/100 acres: said lot containing the building known as the Wilson Prize house.”(17) The following year the “Raleigh News & Observer” describe the prize house as “one of the most completely equipped leaf factory and steam rear during (sic) plant in the state, the building is a mammoth four story structure well planned and substantially built and is one of the most imposing tobacco buildings in the country.”  Below the text is a detailed lithograph of the handsomely executed Prize House and lot (18).** Promotional booklet distributed by the Rocky Mount Improvement and Manufacturing Company in 1892. [^1] ![[Rocky Mount (1892 Pamphlet).pdf]] [^1] The Rocky Mount Improvement & Manufacturing Co. “Rocky Mount, North Carolina.” Myers, Shinkle & Co. (Pittsburgh), 1892.