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. Peter 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. 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. ==Geography==