A native Sarasotan who predated the arrival of the colonists from Scotland, A. B. Edwards was orphaned at age fourteen. He opened his real estate and insurance office in 1903 by the railroad station, which was at Lemon Avenue and First Street.
In 1910, his partner, Joseph H. Lord, placed an ad in the
Chicago Tribune, which interested Bertha Honore Palmer in the area. For her initial visit, Edwards arranged for her to stay in Dr. Jack Halton's sanitarium, which they furnished as a private mansion.
When the city of Sarasota was chartered in 1914, Edwards was elected mayor. He held the office in two decades: 1914-1915 and 1920-1921.
In his first term, the city drilled new wells for the water supply, extended water and sewer lines, and forced residents to pen up their chickens.
After Mayor Edwards worked on the committee that successfully lobbied for Sarasota to be separated from Manatee County, the governor appointed him county tax assessor. He had been elected tax assessor for the town of Sarasota in 1907, 1909, and 1911.
In 1916, the Board of Trade re-organized, with A. B. Edwards and Harry Higel on the Board of Directors, and printed 10,000 copies of a new booklet to promote the city. Edwards worked for the bond issue which funded roads to connect Sarasota, Venice, Bee Ridge, and Fruitville. He also worked for the Tamiami Trail project, a paved road from Tampa to Miami, which would make auto travel to Sarasota easier for the tourist.
In 1926, he built the A. B. Edwards Theater, now the Sarasota Opera House. In 1927, he was one of three partners who each forgave a $16,000 note on the land used for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus winter quarters.
Edwards retired in 1964 at the age of ninety. He has been called "Sarasota's most outstanding native son."