In 1904, North Carolina allowed its people in each county to vote on the Volstead Act,
which
was similar to South Carolina which had gone to a dispensary system years earlier.
Motivation was that men were getting their pay check on Friday and drinking it up
in the bars/saloons before they got home.
The Volstead Act allowed the people to vote on one of three things:
1) leave everything the way it was, 2) one central location in the
city or the county to have a liquor store, and 3) do away with liquor
and become a dry county.
Some counties like Wake for one place - the Raleigh Dispensary.
Johnson county voted for dispensaries in different towns like Selma,
Smithfield, Clayton, and Pine Level.
Cumberland county (Fayetteville) voted for a single county dispensary.
Towns like Charlotte kept saloons.
Not sure when the dispensary system was done away with, but there are no known ABM NC dispensary bottles (i.e. all were BIM).
Alphabetical list of towns/counties in NC that had dispensary bottles:
Catawba Valley,
Clayton,
Cumberland,
Eureka,
Fremont,
Goldsboro (J.W. Edwards),
Greenville,
Henderson,
Jackson,
Kinston,
Louisburg,
Lucama,
Pine Level,
Raleigh,
Roxboro,
Seaboard,
Selma,
Smithfield,
Statesville,
Toisnot,
Vanceboro,
Warrenton,
Waynesville,
Wilson,
Windsor,
Winston.
Know of one not on the list?
Let me know.