CANTON – The patriotic red, white and blue bunting is already draped along Bridge Street for Labor Day and Canton’s 109th annual parade, the mountains’ longest-running celebration of blue-collar workers.
“People used to come from all over,” recalled longtime resident Kathy Johnson, a teller at First Citizens on Main Street. She remembers riding on the Canton Savings and Loan’s float in 1974 through the downtown maze of one-way streets. “I was up front in this twirly thing, waving at everybody, and we would go across the bridge.”
In a service and consumer society, Labor Day has become a long weekend, a last hurrah for summer picnics or beach outings, as labor unions have lost much of their power nationwide and many towns lost their manufacturing base.
Canton saw its Evergreen Packaging paper mill survive but watched its downtown decay and the annual parade dwindle in attendance.
Now town officials are betting that a revamped Labor Day weekend could help boost the economy of the Haywood County burg less than 10 miles from Asheville’s city limits.
Rebranding itself as “WNC’s hometown,” Canton could become the mountains’ next boom town with affordable housing and commercial rents.
“We haven’t been very good about telling our story,” conceded Seth Hendler-Voss, the town manager.
After last year’s decreased turnout at the parade and festival, the Canton Board of Aldermen asked Hendler-Voss and town staff to come up with ideas to increase attendance. The new town manager saw the holiday as a possible key to a decadeslong puzzle of economic revitalization for the town of 4,400.
First of all they had to move the festival back into the center from downtown instead of the recreation park about a quarter mile away.
Canton has pumped up the free festival’s bill with 20 different bands, including funk and rock to draw a more diverse crowd at Sorrell Park just down from the town hall. There will be seven food trucks on hand, thanks to the town’s new ordinance.
The three days are free to the public, with a $65,000 budget. The town has contributed $10,000, but Champion Credit Union has picked up much of the bill as the chief sponsor.
Labor Day itself will feature the traditional parade through town, bluegrass and clogging, a 200-vehicle classic car show, and free swimming at the town pool.
“We want to show that Canton knows how to throw a party,” Hendler-Voss said.
Mountains’ first mill town
But coming into downtown, there’s no hiding Canton’s unglamorous hard-working history.
Driving in from the Canton exit off Interstate 40, visitors first see Evergreen Packaging’s massive smokestacks billowing out white plumes of vapor that join the clouds in a late summer sky.
Ohio printer Peter Thomson founded the Champion Paper Co. His son-in-law Reuben B. Robertson founded the Champion Fibre Co. in 1906, to provide wood pulp for the Ohio paper mill.
The Canton pulp mill was the region’s first massive industrial operation, paving the way for manufacturing to boom in the early 20th century across the mountains.
Champion sponsored the first Labor Day parade in 1906 to salute its workers, and the tradition stuck in Canton.
The plant is now a subsidiary of Evergreen Packaging, now owned by a New Zealand holding company. From cardboard and milk-cartons, Evergreen has followed market demands, becoming the leading manufacturer of paper products like the grande cup of latte you order at a Starbucks anywhere on the East Coast.
Organized labor remains strong at the Canton mill with 600 union jobs out of a workforce of 1,200 with an average annual salary of $78,000.
Canton natives like Chris May concede their town has had a bad reputation for industrial pollution that once fouled the Pigeon River flowing into Tennessee. The Champion smokestacks once belched a stench that could be smelled as far away as Asheville depending on which way the winds were blowing.
The company has spent millions in past decades to improve the Pigeon River and the air quality, but still remains a leading polluter in the region while meeting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. Evergreen will spend $50 million over the next five years to replace coal-fired boilers with natural gas boilers.
Likewise, the town has spent much of the past decade rebuilding infrastructure damaged in the flooding of 2004 when remnants of two hurricanes swelled the Pigeon River and swamped the downtown.
Recruiting businesses
The town is considering extending water and sewer down U.S. 19 toward Candler, perhaps coaxing more businesses and mixed-use development. “That corridor is going to be the future of Canton,” said Hendler-Voss.
The town board recently passed an ordinance for commercial property maintenance, set to go in effect late this month. Property owners in the historic downtown who let broken windows, rotting wood or unstable foundations go unrepaired could face fines of $50 to $500.
Cleaning up eyesores downtown could persuade new investors to make a bet in Canton’s future, officials believe.
Canton wasn’t the first place Steve Kaufman considered when looking to expand space for RNM Engineering, a 50-year-old Waynesville firm specializing in mechanical engineering.
Kaufman looked in Asheville where most of the firm’s clients are located, but commercial space was prohibitively priced. It was even hard to find a place in Waynesville.
Kaufman and the engineering firm were able to buy the 1919 Brannon Building in downtown Canton and renovate the wood floors, keeping much of the distinctive stamped tin ceilings and original bead-board on the second and third floors. “It’s got great bones.”
The town of Canton sweetened the pot with $10,000 in grants for restoring the facade and part of the interior.
“Now instead of a 40-minute drive from Waynesville, we have a 20-minute drive from Canton into Asheville,” Kaufman said.
Kaufman was surprised at the reception his business has received coming to town. “I wasn’t expecting this local support.”
Meanwhile, Canton native May has been putting his money into older buildings in the downtown, renovating and leasing them to new businesses.
This week, he was putting the final touches on Kobe Express, a Japanese restaurant opening up a new location. It’s the fourth for Kobe, which has restaurants in Waynesville, Sylva and Cherokee. The sushi eatery will be only the third new restaurant opened in downtown Canton.
With breweries popping up everywhere around Asheville and beyond, May and others believe it’s only a matter of time before craft beer is manufactured in Canton.
“We’re not here to make Canton the next Asheville,” May said. “But compare the cost of living here versus Buncombe County with its shortage of affordable housing and its traffic congestion, and I believe that goods and services and people will want to come here.”
Working families could get better prices and more for their money in Canton’s close-knit neighborhoods or out in the surrounding countryside in the Bethel area. “What would cost you $300,000 in Buncombe, you could get for $200,000 or $180,000 here,” May said.
“And Canton is only 9.8 miles from the Asheville city limits,” May said.
Canton is no longer afraid to bill itself as a bedroom community, reliant on its neighbors. While Evergreen has good, high-paying jobs that serve many in Haywood, Canton is home to many commuters.
“We see a line of headlights headed out of Canton each morning around 6:30 a.m.,” said Jason Burrell, the assistant town manager and clerk who heads economic development.
“When they come back from working in Asheville, we don’t want them to have to change clothes and turn around to go back to Asheville to eat or for a date night,” Burrell said. “We want them to be able to come downtown and eat or have a beer, or play with the kids in the park.”
Hendler-Voss, 37, has been on the job only a little more than a year. With a background as a landscape architect, Hendler-Voss had worked previously in the City of Asheville parks department for nine years. He wanted to take his talents in “place-making” to manage a small town like Canton.
Canton is a close-knit community where the police chief Bryan Whitener, on the force for 18 years, walks the sidewalk up and down and greets neighbors. But the small town feel aside, Canton has never been known as a scenic destination.
On some tourism maps, Canton has simply disappeared between Asheville and Waynesville, Hendler-Voss laments.
But visitors are flocking to the former industrial section of Asheville’s River Arts District where abandoned warehouses have been readapted.
“We have a town where we are still making things,” Hendler-Voss said. That working class vibe could work to Canton’s advantage.
He’s been getting encouragement from many of the town’s older residents.
Out walking Main Street, he runs into Chief Whitener who’s out patrolling his jurisdiction and talking to friends.
Edie Burnette stopped her car and rolled down her window to chat with her town manager and her police chief. Like many residents, she’s looking forward to celebrating Labor Day with her neighbors and what could come to Canton in the near future.
“There’s an energy in town,” Burnette said. “I think this is a new beginning.”
IF YOU GO
Canton will hold its 109th annual Labor Day Festival sponsored by Champion Credit Union Saturday through Monday. All events are free to the public.
The WNC Country Roots and Rock Experience will be held 3-10 p.m. Saturday in Sorrells Street Park.
Bands include Porch 40, Joe Lasher Jr., Soldier’s Heart, Aaron Burdet and Josh Noren
Sunday 1-10 p.m. Papertown Bluegrass Jam in Sorrells Street Park will feature Balsam Range, the Snyder family, Mangas, Colorado, Locust Honey String Band, Danielle Bishop and Stuart Brothers.
Monday, the 109th Labor Day parade will be held 10 a.m.-noon downtown.
The Canton Heritage Homecoming with bluegrass and clogging will be held 12-10 p.m. at Rec Park.
The vintage car show will be held 12-4 p.m. at Canton Middle School.
For information, click on cantonlaborday.com.
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