The land in Furnas County is flat to rolling and is comprised of clay base soil with thick dark loam topsoil.
Drainage is good.
In the spring of 1871 Theodore Phillips with his family settled in the Republican Valley at the mouth of Turkey Creek a few miles east of where Edison now stands. Shortly after John and Benjamin Arnold settled at the mouth of Dry Creek, which is a few miles west of Edison. Later in the same year, Charles R. Draper took his claim to the north part of Edison. He and his family built a log house on the north side of what is now Second Street. James Parameter homesteaded the quarter section west of Draper.