What hints are given in chapter one that "A Rose for Emily" takes place in the South?

There are several hints in the opening section of this story that the setting is in the American South. To begin with, the description of the architecture of Miss Emily Grierson's house evokes a particular style which was popular in the South in the antebellum period, with its "cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies." Houses in this style would not be common in the North of the country. Next, the mention of cotton wagons and "cotton gins" (machines which separated the different parts of the cotton plant) is another indication that the story has a Southern setting, given that the South thrived on the cotton industry for much of the nineteenth century.
The apparent racial dynamics of the town also suggest a Southern setting. We are told that Miss Emily's house has been visited by nobody but an "old Negro" for the past ten years. The fact that Emily keeps a black servant harks back to the days where slavery was very common in the South. There is also mention of an old law which forbade black women to appear in the streets without an apron; the narrator implies that this law belongs to the old-fashioned sensibility of the area, to which Emily also ascribes.