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A
Place in History
A Place in Your Future
The
Town of Edwards is located in the western portion of Hinds
County, about 2 miles west of Jackson, Mississippi, the
State Capital, and 15 miles east of Vicksburg,
Mississippi.
Hinds
County is bordered to the west of Warren County, southwest
by Claiborne County, south by Copiah County, north by
Madison County, and east by Rankin County.
Emigrants
mostly from the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee
first settled the Edwards community in the period
1820-1830. The first town in the Edwards community
was known as Amsterdam and was located about two miles
northwest of the present town of Edwards. The town
of Amsterdam flourished during the 1830’s and then just
faded away. An epidemic of the cholera about 1832
and the fact that the Alabama & Vicksburg Railroad
missed it by about two miles caused the death of the town.
Edwards
had its beginning as a plantation settlement. R.O.
(Dick) Edwards, for whom the Edwards Hotel in Jackson is
named, owned the plantation, and with the coming of the
Alabama & Vicksburg Railroad in 1839, it was know as
Edwards Depot. The first depot was located about
where the present Livestock Arena is located. The
Yankees burned the depot in 1863 and the present location
of the depot is about a quarter of a mile east of the old
site.
The removal of the town to its present site was made in
1866 and at once became a commercial center. The
records show that as many as twenty thousand bales of
cotton have been shipped from this point in a single
season.
The
Town of Edwards was incorporated in 1871. It is
located on the Illinois Central Railroad and is 28 miles
west of Jackson and 16 miles east of Vicksburg.
Edwards
is the heart of a section of the country that is most
splendidly adapted to general farming and the raising of
fine cattle.
Edwards
has some very fine old antebellum homes in its community.
Many of these gracious old homes are still in excellent
condition.
Edwards’
first newspaper was The Echo, a weekly, established in
1900. The disastrous Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1897
greatly reduced the town’s population. In some
families, every member was ill at the same time and some
members died and were buried without the others finding
out.
Some
of the early personalities, to mention a few, include R.O.
Edwards, for whom the town was named. Colonel W.A.
Montgomery, early citizen, soldier and statesman; Dr.
Estus, a native of the town, who turned his home into a
hospital for southern soldiers during the Civil War.
The
Southern Christian Institute, a black educational
institution, was built near Edwards in 1882.
Undoubtedly, this brought many new people to the area and
stimulated the town’s economy. The Christian
Church with the intention of making available “higher
learning opportunities” for the black people established
the college. It was later rebuilt but the name was
changed to Bonner-Campbell College.
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