Canon Commercial Historic District

Canon's commercial core is a compact district of about 4.5 acres along Depot Street in Franklin County, Georgia. Its one- and two-story brick buildings date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and keep features such as corbeled cornices, cast-iron columns, large storefront windows, transoms and recessed doorways. Notable buildings include the early 1890s W.F. Bowers Building, the two-story Georgian Revival Canon Hotel with double porches, and a rare plain wood-framed store. The district served as the trading center for the town and surrounding farms, with general stores, banks, professional offices and a hotel. It was also a newspaper publishing center, home to titles including the Franklin County Register, The American Union, the Free Press and the Canon Echo, and the Universalist Herald, still published in Canon. The town began as a Bowers family settlement near a sawmill, was first called West Bowersville, and grew with the railroad that arrived in 1879.