Historic Buildings in Canton (and Their Stories)

The landmark buildings that tell Canton's story — from the 1879 Jones Building to the cotton mills and the marble courthouse.

Canton's downtown is full of history if you know where to look. Here are the landmark buildings — and the stories behind them.

The Jones Building

Opened in 1879 as Jones Mercantile, where Robert Tyre Jones and family ran Cherokee County's original department store — hardware to haberdashery, food to furniture, toys to caskets — for about 100 years. Today it anchors the downtown block that houses POPS, and its facade appeared in Marvel's Hawkeye.

Canton Cotton Mills / The Mill on Etowah

Cotton Mill #2 was built in 1923; at its peak the Canton Cotton Mills employed roughly one-third of the local population and made Canton Denim. The complex has been adaptively reused into today's mixed-use Mill on Etowah.

Cherokee County Courthouse

A 1928 five-story Classical Revival marble building — the county jail was built into the top floor (by the Pauly Jail Company of St. Louis). It now houses the Cherokee County History Center.

Historic Canton Theatre

A downtown entertainment landmark for over 100 years, still hosting live theatre, music, comedy, and films.

The bigger story

Canton was renamed in 1834 after Canton, China, hoping to build a silk industry — it never made silk and became a cotton and denim powerhouse instead. Built on Cherokee land (gold was found nearby in 1828), it was burned by Sherman's troops in the Civil War, and has since appeared on screen in Hawkeye and Ozark.