I remember going to Lockhart’s Turkey Farm and Long Meadow Dairy in early grade school. I’m from Durham, NC and they used to offer guided tours of the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company cigarette factory conducted by college girls in airline stewardess-style outfits. Unfortunately, most factories aren’t designed for tours.

The nature of my job as a State of NC Air Quality Environmental Engineer has gotten me tours in all kinds of fascinating factories, but all required me to wear safety shoes, safety glasses, ear protectors, a hard hat and sometimes an emergency escape air tank. A fellow inspector got overwhelmed by the odors and sights of a turkey proceessing plant just before Thaksgiving and ran for the Exit door, upsetting a wheelbarrow load of turkey heads. She changed jobs the next day!

Sometimes the Corporate Mentality is reversed. For years, the insides of the Kraft Cheese Plant in West Jefferson, NC was forbidden territory to all except workers. It’s successor, locally
owned, welcomes visitors.