Carpet as we know it got its start in Dalton, Georgia, when, in 1892, 12-year-old Catherine Evans revived the lost art of “candlewick” tufting. She had admired a bedspread she saw while visiting relatives in Virginia and through trial and error she learned how the bedspread was made. She gave one to her brother as a wedding gift in 1895, and soon family and friends began asking for the bedspreads. In 1900, Catherine Evans began selling bedspreads.

By the 1910s, the bedspreads were showing up in department stores, and by the 1920s, there were so many bedspread manufacturers in the Dalton area that Highway 41, where many of the bedspreads were sold, was known as “Bedspread Alley,” or “Peacock Alley.” The 1930s saw the mechanization of the process. The “tuft houses” where quilts were hand-tufted were replaced with mills where tufting was done by machines.

Candlewick tufting was also popular in the production of small rugs, and when interest in the bedspreads  began to die down, the mills began making rugs and carpet. Wall-to-wall carpet became extremely popular in the 1950s, and Dalton became the Carpet Capital of the World.

Today, the Dalton area is home to more than 150 carpet plants and about 100 carpet outlet stores. Around 90% of the world’s functional carpet is manufactured within a 65-mile radius of the city.  The Dalton area manufactures nearly two billion square yards of carpet each year.

Dalton isn't only known for its carpet, though. The major flooring manufacturers all see the value in diversifying their products. Companies like Mohawk, Shaw, and Beaulieu now produce a vide variety of flooring products, such as ceramic tile, vinyl, laminate and hardwood. Dalton's flooring outlet stores are known for the wide varieties of their products and for their low prices.