Albion is a city in and the county seat of Edwards County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,971 at the 2020 census. The city was named "Albion" after an ancient and poetic reference to the island of Great Britain. Geography Albion is located south of the center of Edwards County at (38.377300, -88.061028). In it, Illinois Route 130 and Illinois Route 15 meet. Route 130 leads north to Olney and south to Grayville, while Route 15 leads east to Mount Carmel and west to Fairfield. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Albion has a total area of , of which (or 97.89%) is land and (or 2.11%) is water. A 3.8-magnitude earthquake occurred seven and a half miles outside of the city on September 19, 2017. Climate History Albion was laid out in 1818 as a utopian community and given the name Albion, a literary name for England. In 1821, the county seat of Edwards County was moved from Palmyra to Albion, eighteen miles to the west. However, residents of the larger Mount Carmel felt their town should be the county seat. Four companies of militia marched from Mount Carmel towards Albion to seize the county documents stored in the courthouse. The situation was eventually resolved in 1824 by separating Wabash County from Edwards County at Bonpas Creek and making Mount Carmel the seat of Wabash County. The two counties are among the smallest in Illinois. The township of Albion has a curious link with England and brewing. George Flower and Morris Birkbeck, a Quaker agriculturalist and radical, organised the purchase of 26,400 acres of land in the southern "Illinois Territory," to found Albion and encouraged settlers from England to come and join them. Among them was George's father Richard Flower, an experienced brewer (who at some point taught his son about making popular beer styles of the period, including London Porter). Flower came across the Atlantic with all his remaining children. The settlement espoused a firm abolitionist ethos, and escaped slaves from Kentucky settled in Albion, encouraged by the Flowers and other community leaders. However, these formerly enslaved people were always in danger of being kidnapped by bounty hunters aiming to return them to slavery. Around 1823-24 one such gang of eight to ten kidnapped a group of free African-American residents of Albion and headed south. They were pursued by an outraged armed party led by Richard’s