In her unpublished thesis on the American Tobacco Company Warehouses in Durham, Elizabeth Mansell suggests that Hicks took a leading role in planning the Walker Tobacco Warehouse, a prototype of the fireproof storage warehouses built by the company. In a letter to Benjamin N. Duke, Hicks mentioned conferring on the requirements of the proposed building, “making the figures for the brick,” and planning to “make the sketch as you have directed.” W. J. Hicks to B. N. Duke, Oct. 28, 1897, Benjamin Duke Letters, Duke University Library, quoted in Elizabeth Lloyd Meihack Mansell, “The American Tobacco Company Brick Storage Warehouses in Durham, North Carolina, 1897-1906,” M. A. Thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, (1980).