Elko is a small unincorporated community in Houston County, Georgia, lying south of the county seat of Perry in the broad agricultural band of central Georgia. It was founded around 1890 as a railroad town, after the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad laid tracks through the county's southern section in 1888 and sold lots for a new depot community. The name Elko first appeared around 1889, and through the early 1900s the town prospered as a shipping point and trading center for the cotton planters of southern Houston County. The landscape around Elko still reflects that agricultural heritage. Houston County was among the nation's leading fruit-producing regions in the decades after the Civil War, and its peach orchards were long a defining crop; today the countryside around Elko is more commonly planted in cotton fields and pecan orchards, with row crops and pasture filling the spaces between. The community remains quiet and rural, a collection of homes, a school, and small businesses along the county roads rather than an incorporated municipality. Despite its size, Elko is closely connected to the larger Houston County economy. It lies within the Warner Robins metropolitan area and is only about twenty minutes from Interstate 75 and roughly twenty-five miles from Warner Robins, home of Robins Air Force Base and a major center of aerospace and logistics employment. Perry, a few minutes north, provides the county's civic and commercial services and hosts the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter, a 1,100-acre state-owned event complex. Public education is provided by Houston County Schools, the county's single school district, which operates Elko School and Southside Elementary in the community. Elko suits residents who want rural central Georgia living, room for agriculture, and access to the jobs and amenities of Perry and Warner Robins, all within a short drive.