This used to be tobacco country, and still is if you know where to look. It is in the very mortar that holds them together. Auction sales run from mid-July through October and are worth a visit. Right next door in another warehouse is the region's largest Latino flea market. In those two buildings are the Triangle's past and the Triangle's future.
History runs deep hereabouts.
Europeans were getting themselves lost here long before the Pilgrims ever set sail from the Old World. The North Carolina Museum of History tells the story with accuracy, affection and a surprise or two. It's in downtown Raleigh, and it's free. Chapel Hill has always been a college town, home to the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest state university. You may have heard they play a mean game of basketball, and the old campus is among the most beautiful in America.