Shannon, GA

Shannon is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Floyd County, between Rome and Calhoun just off Highway 53. The 2020 census counted 1,919 residents. Its first settlement dates to the 1830s, when the place was known as Ridge Valley and later Hermitage. Today the local map is a mix of homes, side roads, fields, and school routes, with Model Middle and Model High serving the surrounding community. The old Ridge Valley and Hermitage names sit underneath the newer address system. The road is never far from a field.

ATTRJohn Phelan / CC BY 4.0

Shannon sits in that north Georgia in-between space where Rome handles the bigger errands and the countryside begins almost immediately. Model School has been part of the area since 1900, and the campus history gives the community a long schoolhouse thread without making Shannon feel like a suburb of Rome. Highway 53 keeps the Rome-Calhoun drive in the everyday mix. Shannon is a small Floyd County place with old settlement names, school buses, and farm-country edges.