East Central

Fast facts about Thomson/McDuffie County: population, unemployment rate, top employers.

Thomson is a small town many Georgians know only as the last stop on Interstate 20 before Augusta. But it's also a destination for corporate executives and wealthy travelers from around the country.

Leaders of Thomson and McDuffie County have taken their model for success - cooperation between governments - to the next level by forming a new five county partnership aimed at encouraging economic development in East Georgia.

It's late afternoon and the John Deere Commercial Products factory in Columbia County's Horizon South Industrial Park is quiet.

For a brief joyous moment last October, the little hamlet of Harlem (pop. 1,804) became Colombia County's largest city, thanks to the 1892 birth of a child who would grow into one of the funniest men ever to stumble across the silver screen.

Last May, when Indian businessman Gurdeep Soni came to Columbia County's Horizon North Industrial Park for a groundbreaking ceremony, he brought a small vial of water taken from near the headquarters of his New Delhi corporation, Uniparts.

Fast facts about Columbia County: population, unemployment rate, per capita income, top employers, government.