If you’ve lived in Canton for a while, you probably know that Canton used to be the “Sweet Corn Capital of Michigan.” But where did that name come from? And why don’t we use it anymore?
The sweet corn we now enjoy is the result of a whole lot of history and human machination. The domestication of corn began with a wild grass called teosinte around 9,000 years ago in south-central Mexico. Farmers cultivated favorable traits in the plant—more drought-tolerance, more kernels, juicier kernels—through selective breeding.
Now known as maize (yes, like maize and blue), the new, improved crop was carried by Indigenous peoples to other parts of the Americas, where it was further modified, and different varieties emerged. One of these was sweet corn, which is truly sweeter due to a gene mutation that gives the kernels twice as much sugar and less starch than the varieties we feed livestock.
As much as 1,000 years ago, Native American tribes in what are now Wisconsin and Michigan were so into sweet corn that they even undertook massive earth-moving projects to extend its range farther north.
When European settlers first arrived, colonists scorned corn, considering it inferior because of its “native” associations. When harvests of “traditional” crops failed, however, they were forced to rely on more local foods.
Compared to other vegetables, corn is easy to grow. It grows in a range of weather conditions, doesn’t take a ton of time or special attention, doesn’t require plowing, and produces a reliable harvest. These qualities led to corn’s incorporation in many gardens and farm fields.
Small and medium-sized farmers grew it—and still grow it—not just to eat themselves but also because it could be easily stored and reliably sold. Corn was one of the original American side hustles.
As corn cultivation became widespread among settlers, it also took on new symbolism. In the lead-up to the Revolution, Americans turned corn into a symbol of resistance, co-opting the cultural stigma Europeans had assigned it.
And, after the Revolution, once Americans gained access to the Upper Ohio River Valley, we basically planted wall-to-wall corn throughout the new territory—so much so that farmers developed new products like corn whiskey to make use of it all, which in turn led the new government to try to tax it, which in turn led to more rebellion.
Most farms in southeast Michigan were established between 1825 and 1850 following the opening of the Erie Canal. Visitors, speculators and new settlers took steamships and landed in Detroit or Monroe, but from there, they found the routes to the interior primitive, muddy and dangerous.
In response to these concerns, Congress, which was also worried about maintaining control of the area (because of the active “Indian Wars”), took over and improved the pre-existing Sauk Trail to create the Chicago Road (aka Michigan Avenue, or US 12) to carry troops west from Detroit.
This new formalized road became a main thoroughfare into the interior of Michigan—and, as it happens, came right past Canton. Its development simplified the process of getting farm products to market, and local farms, as a result, began getting bigger and more specialized. Railroad expansion in the 1840s accelerated this trend.
Canton area farms grew a variety of crops, but chief among them were dairy and corn—sweet corn for human consumption, and field or seed corn for the cows. Farmers used the roads to truck their products to Eastern Market in Detroit and to other markets in the region. Corn continued to be grown both for its direct value and for its indirect benefits to landholders: being easy to grow, store and sell.
In 1860, the Free Homestead Act offered 160 acres of farmland to every U.S. citizen or person declaring their intention to become a citizen. This encouraged both immigrants and farmers whose land in the east had become depleted to travel west. It also coincided with the invention and mass marketing of labor-saving machines such as reapers, loaders, spreaders, spraying equipment, combines and many others.
Forest was cleared and new farms established, and many settlers—looking for the fastest, easiest and most reliable crops—chose corn. The stockpiling of corn prompted wide experimentation with ways to make the crop profitable, for example, the creation of corn-based cereal and the lab development of new varieties.
Over time, these efforts, combined with other industrial techniques, continued modification, and pesticides like DDT, made it even easier to grow corn at scale, and modern transportation and storage infrastructure made it even easier to sell—but these changes also meant fewer farmers were needed to grow the same quantity of product.
While 90% of colonists worked in agriculture around 1776, only half of Americans farmed by 1870, and only a third of Americans worked in agriculture by 1910. Farmers now comprise less than 2% of the general population—even though the size of the “Corn Belt” keeps growing.
For the remaining farmers to take advantage of the benefits they see in corn as a product, they need to grow it as cheaply as possible—and that means, among other things, using cheap land.
While the construction of the highways is not the root cause of all the changes in the corn market, the creation of roads and highways did make the land in Canton more expensive. It became possible for people to live in Canton while still working and enjoying leisure activities in Detroit or Ann Arbor.
New residents were lured to Canton and the surrounding areas by cheaper housing, larger lots, lower taxes, and the new suburban lifestyle they saw on TV and in new mass marketing. The combination of their interest in these lifestyle amenities with changing technologies and practices in housing construction made housing a much more lucrative use of all those Canton corn fields.
And thus, goodbye, Sweet Corn Capital.
Learn more about corn:
- A Taste of Power: Food and American Identities by Katharina Vester
- Making the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-western Agriculture by John C. Hudson
- King Corn: You Are What You Eat (2008)
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