Canton is the second largest town in Haywood County, North Carolina, United States. It is located about west of Asheville and is part of that city's metropolitan area. The town is named after the city of Canton, Ohio. The population was 4,422 at the 2020 census.
History
This area was long settled by succeeding Indigenous cultures. What is known as the archeological Garden Creek site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on the south side of the Pigeon River, approximately seven miles west of Canton. It was inhabited from 8000 BCE by successive cultures of Indigenous peoples. Villages were developed in the Middle Woodland (200-600 CE) and The Southeast Appalachian Mississippian culture (1000 to 1450/1500 CE) periods. The Cherokee people are the most recent Native Americans to occupy this area, which is part of their homelands in the western Carolinas, southeastern Tennessee, and northeastern Georgia. The Cherokee in Western North Carolina are known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a federally recognized tribe.
The prehistoric peoples built a total of four earthwork mounds at the site. Three have been excavated, the last two platform mounds in the 1960s prior to residential development.
European Americans did not begin to settle here until the late 1780s, following the American Revolutionary War, United States independence, and gaining cessions of land to the US by the Cherokee. By 1790, Jonathan McPeters was farming the banks of the Pigeon River at the site where Canton developed. Around 1815 the first church was built in what was to become Canton; it was called the Locust Old Field Baptist Church. "Old Field" often referred to areas cultivated or occupied by the Cherokee people, as this was known to be part of their traditional homelands.
Canton was founded in 1889 as "Buford". Later that same year, the name was changed to "Vinson". The name was changed to "Pigeon Ford" in 1891, and to "Canton" in 1893. The town was named for Canton, Ohio, the source of the steel for the bridge that was built across the Pigeon River.
Canton's river location enabled the development of industry that used water power.
thumb|left|Champion factory in 1937Peter G. Thomson had built Champion Coated Paper Company of Hamilton, Ohio into one of largest manufacturers of paper in the United States. He visited Western North Carolina in 1905 looking for a location for a pulp mill to supply his company. The area had large forests that would supply timber. Leaders of communities farther to the west tried to convince Thomson to choose their areas. While the timber supplies were greater to the west, Thomson wanted areas with more spruce and settled on Canton, which had the type trees Thomson wanted, enough land for a mill, and the Pigeon River to move logs to the mill (Thomson later realized the river did not decline sufficiently, so railroads were used to move logs instead). Construction on the mill began in 1906. Many of the workers also had farms that they had to return to, so immigrants were hired to do much of the work.
thumb|right|Town hall
Canton had 350 people when work began. Under an ESOP, the employees owned a 45% stake in the new company. The plant was sold to Evergreen Packaging, which in 2020 became Pactiv Evergreen. The Blue Ridge Southern Railroad served the plant and has a small railyard next to it. On March 6, 2023, Pactiv Evergreen announced the mill would close in the summer, affecting 1,100 workers.
The Canton Main Street Historic District and Colonial Theater are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
On August 17, 2021, Tropical Storm Fred flooded the town near the Pigeon River. As of June 2022, many buildings surrounding the river were still not usable as a result of the storm. In nearby Cruso, six people died as a result from the flooding, many of which at Laurel Bank Campground. Flooding from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 was even worse.
thumb|View of Canton
Geography
Canton is in east-central Haywood County, on both sides of the Pigeon River. U.S. Routes 19 and 23 pass through the center of town as Park Street and Main Street. The highways lead east to Asheville and west to Lake Junaluska. Interstate 40 passes through the northernmost part of Canton, with access from Exits 31 and 33. I-40 leads east to Asheville and northwest through the Pigeon River Gorge into Tennessee.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town of Canton has a total area of , all land.
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2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Canton had a population of 4,422. The median age was 40.8 years. 19.8% of residents were under the age of 18 and 19.1% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 87.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 85.5 males age 18 and over.
99.4% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.6% lived in rural areas.
There were 1,928 households in Canton, of which 26.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 38.8% were married-couple households, 19.0% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 34.3% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 34.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 16.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
!scope="col"| Race
!scope="col"| Number
!scope="col"| Percentage
|-
!scope="row"| White (non-Hispanic)
| 3,872
| 87.56%
|-
!scope="row"| Black or African American (non-Hispanic)
| 90
| 2.04%
|-
!scope="row"| Native American
| 25
| 0.57%
|-
!scope="row"| Asian
| 12
| 0.27%
|-
!scope="row"| Other/Mixed
| 168
| 3.8%
|-
!scope="row"| Hispanic or Latino
| 255
| 5.77%
|}
2000 census
As of the census