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Office: Edwards County Sheriff’s Office – 50 E. Main Street, Suite 1, Albion, IL 62806 | (618) 445-2721 | Email: [email protected]; Sheriff Darby Boewe, over two decades in law enforcement. 4 officers serving roughly 6,971 residents across 245 square miles.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: SR-1/15 serve Albion, the county seat and largest city, near the Wabash River and the Indiana state line. Edwards County is genuinely distinctive in its local government structure: it is subdivided into “Road Districts” rather than the “Townships” used by most other Illinois counties.
Notes: Edwards County was established in 1814 by the laws of the Illinois Territory, during the concluding actions of the War of 1812, named for Ninian Edwards, Governor of the Illinois Territory and later Governor of the state of Illinois.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Edwards County Courthouse – 50 E. Main Street, Albion, IL. The first courthouse, built in Albion in 1825 for $3,000 in gold-standard currency, had its bricks later repurposed into the structure of the Albion-based Edwards County Historical Society. A second courthouse followed in 1852 for $3,600.
Notes: Albion has a genuinely distinctive founding story: it began as “Mr. Morris Birkbeck’s English Prairie,” a utopian community established in 1817 by English Quaker Morris Birkbeck and co-founder George Flower. Following an irreconcilable falling-out between the two founders in 1818, Flower’s portion of the settlement was named Albion, after the ancient poetic name for Great Britain. The original county seat was Palmyra (now a ghost town); it moved to Albion in 1821 (or 1824, per differing sources).
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Edwards County Veterans Assistance – confirm current contact via Edwards County government offices.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Albion Public Library (Albion) – confirm current address/phone via the county library system.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: The Edwards County Courthouse, the Edwards County Historical Society (built with bricks from the original 1825 courthouse), and downtown Albion’s English-heritage sites are the county’s premier heritage attractions.
Notes: The genuine English Quaker utopian founding of Albion – one of Illinois’s more unusual town origin stories – is among the standout local historical facts covered in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Edwards County Assessor’s Office – confirm current contact via county offices.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Confirm current dedicated shelter contact via county offices; Edwards County Sheriff’s Office for animal control arrangements.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Edwards County Environmental Health – confirm current contact via county offices.
NOTES: Edwards County is the twenty-fourth county completed in Illinois’s Round 3 v2 redo, under the A+ sourced standard established for this project. The genuine English Quaker utopian founding of Albion is among the standout local historical facts covered in this project. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About Edwards County County
Edwards County is southeastern Illinois’s English settler heritage and Little Wabash River county – Morris Birkbeck’s 1818 English agricultural settlement that attracted prairie farmers from England and the Little Wabash River’s bottomland corridor define a small county whose founding story is one of Illinois’s most unusual and whose agricultural character has persisted since.
Albion (the county seat, population ~1,600) is Edwards County’s governmental hub, a small southeastern Illinois community on IL-15 whose English settlement heritage, Little Wabash access, and agricultural service role anchor its quiet community identity near the Indiana border.
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Edwards County Supervisor of Assessments at 50 E. Main Street, Albion, IL 62806, phone 618-445-2115. IL assessed at 33.33% of market value.
Courts & Legal
Edwards County Circuit Court at 50 E. Main Street, Albion, IL 62806, phone 618-445-2115, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK (Records, Vital Records, Elections)
50 E. Main St., Albion, IL 62806
(618) 445-2115
CIRCUIT CLERK (Court Records, Marriage Licenses)
50 E. Main St., Albion, IL 62806
(618) 445-2016
ELECTIONS (County Clerk)
50 E. Main St., Albion, IL 62806
(618) 445-2115
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Edwards County Circuit Clerk (probate/estate case files – see Probate section above).
Local societies
No dedicated Edwards County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Edwards County Circuit Clerk (Second Judicial Circuit) 50 East Main Street, Courthouse, Albion, IL 62806 (618) 445-2115 Edwards County is a small, rural county in southeastern Illinois.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Illinois has NOT adopted the Uniform Probate Code and is not a community property state – it follows common law property principles. Illinois probate is governed by the Probate Act of 1975 (755 ILCS 5/). Two main paths:
Small Estate Affidavit – for estates where personal property (excluding real estate) is valued at $150,000 or less (raised from $100,000 effective August 15, 2025), with no unresolved debts or claims and no real estate involved. No formal court probate is required.
Formal Probate (Independent or Supervised Administration) – required when the estate doesn’t qualify for the small estate affidavit. Most Illinois probate cases proceed under Independent Administration, letting the estate representative act without prior court approval for most routine actions.
Step 2: filing for formal probate
File the decedent’s original will (if one exists) with the Edwards County Circuit Clerk, where the decedent resided at death.
Petition the court to open the estate and appoint an executor (if there’s a will) or an administrator (if intestate).
The court issues Letters of Office (Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration) appointing the representative.
Publish notice to creditors and unknown heirs as required by Illinois law.
Under Independent Administration, the representative marshals assets, pays valid debts and taxes, and distributes the remaining estate without needing court approval for each step.
File a final accounting or closing documents to formally close the estate.
What it costs
Illinois imposes its own state estate tax on estates valued above $4 million, with rates up to 16%. There is no Illinois inheritance tax.
Filing fees vary by county – confirm current amounts with the Edwards County Circuit Clerk.
Most uncontested probate proceedings in Illinois can be completed within about a year.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
50 E. Main St., Albion, IL 62806
(618) 445-2131
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK (Records, Vital Records, Elections)
50 E. Main St., Albion, IL 62806
(618) 445-2115
ELECTIONS (County Clerk)
50 E. Main St., Albion, IL 62806
(618) 445-2115
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Edwards County Health Dept
(618) 445-2119
IL DCFS — Carmi
(618) 382-4112
IL Medicaid
(800) 843-6154
Carmi Memorial Hospital (Carmi)
whitecohealth.org
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Edwards County Health Department – confirm current contact via county offices.
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Albion
Population: 6,500
Area: 222 sq mi
Established: 1814
Public Records
TruthFinder
Search public records for Edwards County County residents.
