Canton Tutors Come To You

When settlers established northwestern Georgia’s county seat in the 1830s, they chose a site in the heart of Cherokee Nation and eventually settled on the name “Canton,” the English name for the Chinese city of Guangzhou. At the time, a group of settlers had dreams of making Canton, Georgia, the silk capital of the United States, mimicking China’s silk industry.

Canton never reached that level of silk manufacturing, but focused instead on cotton. The city’s Canton Cotton Mills thrived and became known nationwide for its Canton Denim. Soon after, Mark Anthony Cooper established the Cooper Ironworks at a nearby site. In 1879, the railroad was built through Canton’s downtown, further boosting the city’s economic vitality and tourism. Marble, dairy, and poultry all became important products. This era was the beginning of Canton’s entrepreneurial spirit, which exists to this day.

Entrepreneurs who reside in Canton get much assistance from the city’s Economic Development Department, whose seven-page “A Guide to Starting a Business in Canton” can help the start-up process go more smoothly. The guide includes a step-by-step process to determine zoning, obtain permits and inspections, and secure a business license. The city also maintains the “Canton Main Street Program,” a part of a larger program encompassing other Main Street communities in Georgia. The Main Street programs assist businesses that want to relocate to downtown by providing services such as a mapping app that shows available space for lease in downtown and a façade grant program that can fund a facelift for a building’s exterior.

The historical downtown area is, in fact, just one of Canton’s jewels, which in 2014 was named the best city in Georgia by real estate blog Movoto.com. In the ranking process, the city got points for tax rates, commute time, crime rates, amenities, and quality of life. The latter included student-teacher ratios, cost of living, median home prices, median rents, and median household income. Canton can also brag about its scenic location at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and near the Etowah River. Besides many recreational opportunities, the location provides simple access to Interstate 575 and is forty miles north of Atlanta, both appealing to entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs also have access to the city’s new 700-acre, waterfront, master-planned, mixed-use park that ultimately will create 15,000 to 25,000 jobs and reduce the number of Canton residents who now commute to jobs elsewhere.

Cherokee County is also doing its part to assist new businesses with its Fresh Start Cherokee initiative, meant to grow and nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs. Through the program, entrepreneurs and start-ups may apply to work at the co-working space and attend educational programs and lectures that will ensure the wave of entrepreneurship continues to flow through Canton.