Canton Main Street Historic District

Canton's Main Street district covers about fourteen acres in the center of town, directly south of the paper mill. Brick buildings of one to three stories line Main and Park Streets, with a few more on adjoining side streets. Most are plain Commercial Style storefronts built by local merchants such as Charles Wells and Charles Hampton, many with upper floors once used for offices, apartments or boarding houses. Several buildings stand apart: the Queen Anne-style Imperial Hotel from about 1885, the Classical Revival Champion Fibre Company Office Building of 1918, the former Champion Bank, the stone-faced post office built in 1939 with Works Progress Administration funds, and the Colonial Theater of 1932, an unusual Colonial Revival design for a movie house. The district was listed because it preserves a coherent picture of the town's growth from the mid-1880s through the 1920s, shaped by the mill. Some buildings have been altered by stucco or modern fronts, but the overall character remains intact.