Those of us with roots in Anderson, Indiana remember that the population dropped from the highs of the 1970’s about the time I graduated from high school. The peak was above 70,000. By 1980 we were on the cover of Life Magazine with the highest unemployment levels in the country. GM jobs disappeared for the next 30 years. Three large high schools became one high school. Many elementary and middle schools closed. A large mall closed. GM employs nobody...but noooo body. Not a pretty picture. A recovery is still a dream. Maybe a stabilization, but not a return to the glory days.
Edwards County didn’t experience anything that drastic. They were never that large. It’s mostly farmland, with a few small towns. It’s not really even on the interstate. I was surprised to see that the population actually peaked in 1900 at 10,345. Here’s an idea. Reading The Albion Journal, we know that Edwards County was situated on rail lines, with both east-west and north-south lines. In fact, they were on the route that went from Louisville to St. Louis. Lots of goods were hauled, but also a fair number of people. They, like Anderson, are also on a river. But the importance of the river to population growth ended well before 1900.At the 2010 population level of 6,721 they are at the lowest level since just after the civil war.
Their closest interstate is I-64, which runs east and west just south of Grayville. But Grayville is partly in White County. And I predict their newer shopping areas and industrial areas will be built between Grayville and the interstate. Not in Edwards County. But you never know.
By the way... the largest ancestral group in Edwards County at the last census was... German-American. Not English-American. Keep that in mind when I post soon about the pioneers of my grandmother Della Fisher Dixon’s family.
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