First Monday Trades Day

Canton tells two origins. The Handbook of Texas says sources differ: court days held on the first Monday of each month, or monthly visits by neighbors during Confederate times. It began as barter of surplus stock and grew into swapping dogs, antiques, junk and donkeys on thirty acres. The market's own history places the first trading off the west side of the courthouse square, wild horses included, and says the city bought six acres two blocks north in 1965, after the event outgrew the square. It later ran Thursday through Sunday but kept its name.

What the plaque says

First Monday Trades Day On the first Monday of each month in the early 1850s, Judges Oran M. Roberts and Bennett H. Martin held court in Canton, an event attended by townspeople and country folk alike. With large numbers of people present, court day also became the occasion for the common practice of auctioning stray horses. Within a short time horse trading and selling were prevalent and the day called "Hoss Monday." After a few years the First Monday Trades Day expanded to include all kinds of goods. In 1965, the city purchased these grounds for the monthly event. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Purtis Creek State Park — 16 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 24 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 26 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 29 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.

More markers nearby

• Dixie Hotel — steps away
• Cadwell Walton Raines — steps away
• Oran Milo Roberts — steps away
• Site of 1896 Van Zandt County Courthouse — steps away