Canton & the Bethel–Cruso Valley

Canton sits at about 2,600 feet where Interstate 40 meets the Pigeon River, 17 miles west of Asheville. Incorporated in 1891 and renamed for Canton, Ohio, in 1893, it grew around the Champion Fibre mill that opened in 1908 and ran until Pactiv Evergreen closed it in 2023. Its Main Street Historic District, 34 buildings including the Colonial Theater, was listed in 2005; the Labor Day festival begun in 1906 continues; and the 450-acre Chestnut Mountain Nature Park has nine miles of mountain-bike trail.

South of town, US 276 and NC 215 follow the East and West Forks of the Pigeon into the Bethel and Cruso valley, crop fields and family land at roughly 2,700 to 2,950 feet. Cold Mountain, 6,030 feet and the setting of Charles Frazier's novel, rises above Bethel inside the 18,483-acre Shining Rock Wilderness, and both highways climb to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Lake Logan lies on the West Fork off NC 215.