Calhoun County is a rural

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Morgan and its population was 5,573 in 2020.

History

Calhoun County was named for John C. Calhoun, the seventh

Vice President of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest ranking office in the Executive branch of the United States government, executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks f ...

. It was created from parts of Early and

Baker A baker is a tradesperson who baking, bakes and sometimes Sales, sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient histo ...

counties on February 20, 1854. Rival political factions disagreed about whether the county seat should be in Concord, a community north of present-day Leary, or in Dickey, then known as Whitney. As a compromise, a spot halfway between Concord and Whitney was chosen for the county seat, and the town of Morgan was established there. In 1923 the state legislature moved the county seat to Arlington as directed by a county referendum. This decision was reversed in 1929, restoring Morgan as the county seat. Calhoun Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Arlington originally founded as a Hill-Burton hospital, closed in 2013 after 62 years of operation. In 2008, members of the Downtown Business Authority in Arlington founded the South Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority (SGRITA) with help from the state government to provide wireless broadband service to several counties in rural southwest Georgia. In 2017 SGRITA moved its office to Blakely in Early County.

Geography

The county seat is Morgan, where the historic Calhoun County Courthouse is located. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.1%) is water. The vast majority of Calhoun County is in the Ichawaynochaway Creek sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The county's western and southwestern corner, from Arlington running northwest to west of Edison, is in the

Spring Creek A spring creek is a type of free flowing river whose name derives from its origin: an underground Spring (hydrology), spring or set of springs which produces sufficient water to consistently feed a unique river. The water flowing in a spring cree ...

sub-basin of the same larger ACF River Basin. The

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

has designated most of the county's land as prime farmland. Agricultural, forestry, and wildlife plantations line the county's eastern edge.

Adjacent counties

* Terrell County (northeast) * Dougherty County (east) * Baker County (southeast) * Early County (southwest) * Clay County (west) * Randolph County (northwest)

Communities

Cities

* Arlington (Partly in Early County) * Edison * Leary * Morgan

Unincorporated communities

* Dickey * Williamsburg

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,573 people, 1,736 households, and 1,152 families residing in the county. Of these people, 4.0% were under 5 years old, 16.9% were under 18, and 16.6% were 65 or over. The population was 39.3% female. The foreign-born population was 4.1% of the total. Of residents aged 5 or older, 7.7% spoke a language other than English at home. There were 1,736 households. The average household size was 2.56. The county had 2,406 housing units, of which 65.6% were owner-occupied.

Economy

Many farms in Calhoun County grow

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

, oats,

sorghum ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain i ...

, and

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

. Calhoun State Prison in Morgan is a major employer. Calhoun Nursing Home, a 60-bed long-term care facility in Edison, is now operated by Miller County.

Education

The Calhoun County School District has an elementary school and a middle-high school all in Edison. The district has about 530 students. Pataula Charter Academy opened in 2010 in Edison as a tuition-free public charter school serving several counties in southwest Georgia. It has about 609 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The Calhoun County Library in Edison is part of the Kinchafoonee Regional Library System.

Government

Calhoun County has a council-manager government with five commissioners elected by district.

Politics

Calhoun County is staunchly Democratic in US presidential elections. The last Republican candidate to win the county was

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...