Thomson, Georgia

Thomson, about thirty miles west of Augusta, started in eighteen thirty-seven as a depot on the Georgia Railroad, which was pushing inland from Augusta toward what would become Atlanta. The stop was first called Slashes, a local name for a brushy lowland. In eighteen fifty-three it was renamed Thomson, in honor of John Edgar Thomson, the Philadelphia engineer who served as chief civil engineer of the Georgia Railroad and later led the Pennsylvania Railroad into its golden era.

Thomson was incorporated as a town in eighteen fifty-four. When Georgia created McDuffie County in eighteen seventy, carved from parts of Columbia and Warren counties, Thomson was chosen as the new county seat. It remains the seat today, a quiet market town in the Augusta area.