Edison, GA

Edison is a Calhoun County city 40 miles west of Albany and about 20 miles east of the Alabama line. The Georgia General Assembly incorporated it as the Town of Edison in 1902, naming it for inventor Thomas Edison. The 2020 census counted 1,230 residents. Edison's location places it in a rural southwest Georgia network of highways, farm roads, and small county-seat connections, with larger regional trips running toward Albany, Cuthbert, and Fort Gaines.

ATTRMichael Rivera / CC BY-SA 3.0

Downtown history is unusually visible in the Edison Commercial Historic District, a five-acre area listed on the National Register in 2000. The district includes the former Bank of Edison building, now used as city hall, along with commercial buildings that mark the town's early business center. Calhoun County High School-Middle School serves students from Edison and several nearby cities, and Calhoun County Elementary School is in Arlington. City government, the historic commercial core, and the countywide school system each cover a different part of local life. Edison's present-day map links a compact historic center to a broader rural school and service area, preserving the relationship between a small municipality and the region around it.