Jackson MS Landmarks

The Farish Street Historic District was a busy black business community years earlier. Local commerce leaders want to start to redevelop it by recovering a couple of structures right into bars and dining establishments. The Alamo Movie theater on historic Farish Street has been restored and also is area owned. Back in the 1930s and 40s, Robert Johnson and also Jelly Roll Morton lived in the Farish Street area. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and also Duke Ellington entertained on Farish Street.

The Hawkins Field Airport is owned and run by the City of Jackson and is made use of by the armed forces and also civilians. It was opened up in 1928, and cement runways were built in 1936. The United States Military utilized it for flight instruction in World War II and also greatly expanded it. In 1963, jet airplanes started service to Hawkins Field Airport. Hawkins Field Airport sits on 602 acres and has 2 runways in operation. 2 World War Two runways have been abandoned for many years.

A public, predominantly African-America college, Jackson State was founded in 1877. The present area was originally built in 1902 and also now features 51 buildings on a 245-acre campus. The athletic program is a member of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision and also the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Walter Payton is its most famous alumnus. 75% of Jackson State's students are from Jackson and the state of Mississippi.

West of uptown Jackson, The Poindexter Park Historic Area is experiencing a re-birth. Habitat for Humanity and also Operation Weed and Seed strive to restore the area. Poindexter Park has many restored houses on the National Register of Historic Places. One of the old manors was built by Mississippi's second governor, George Poindexter. He was a delegate, representative, and senator who was born in 1779.

The Mississippi River Basin Model Waterways Experiment Station at Buddy Butts Park was utilized to model prospective floods in the Mississippi River basin from 1949 until 1973 and rests on 200 acres. It was constructed from 1943 to 1966 by the USA Army Corps of Engineers. Its objective was to offer the Military Crops required details to mitigate flooding along the Mississippi River. The area around the Missouri River was completed by 1952 and also modeled the April floods of that year. It was operational to Memphis by 1959 and also was completed in 1966. Nonetheless, operational costs and computer modeling made the model outdated by 1973. As of 2013, the model is overgrown and deserted, but open to the general public.

Starting in 1822, the Jackson Police Department has been of service to the people of Jackson MS. They started using uniforms in 1873, with detectives selected in 1878. A whole lot occurred in 1909 with the addition of police officers on horseback, and plain-clothes detectives. At an early stage, police officers used telephone call boxes on light poles to respond to one-way radio transmissions. The existing head office building opened in 1952 at 327 East Pascagoula Street and also it consists of both the municipal court and jail. There are now 4 precincts.

Jackson is the capital of Mississippi and also is just one of 2 county seats of Hinds County. Named after General Andrew Jackson, it was established in 1821 to be the state capital. After the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863, General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union forces captured Jackson and destroyed it. There was a gas boom in the 1920s, and also it's nicknamed "The City with Soul."

The Jackson area has a population of 579,332. It was part of the Choctaw nation at one time. Mississippi Choctaw are now part of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and also live in a number of Native-American communities in the state.

The first European settler was Louis LeFleur, and Jackson was initially referred to as LeFleur's Bluff. In 1821, a state-commissioned report stated LeFleur's Bluff was a beautiful area and also had plenty of water and timber and also access to the Natchez Trail. The site then came to be the seat of state government. It was plated in 1822 in a grid pattern, and city blocks include many parks. The railroad went through Jackson in 1840, which stimulated growth after the Civil War.

Jackson was a manufacturing facility for the Confederacy throughout the War Between the States, making it a target of Union troops in 1863. Since the city was destroyed, few antebellum structures have actually made it through. Nonetheless, the Governor's Mansion, the Old Capitol, as well as the Jackson City Hall remain.

After the War Between the States, financial recovery was slow-moving. Mule-drawn streetcars became electrical in 1899. A brand-new capitol building was built in 1903.

Born in Jackson in 1909, writer Eudora Welty won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for, "The Optimist's Daughter." The Jackson Town library was named for her, and her home is a National Historic Site. Jackson experienced a growth explosion in the early 20th century, and also a new Union Station was constructed. The King Edward Hotel opened up in 1923 and was a facility for prestigious occasions. The 1919 Standard Life Building set the record for the biggest reinforced concrete structure at the time.

Gas fields were discovered in 1930 resulting in an additional boom that minimized the effects of the Great Depression. This sector trailed off in 1955.

During Mississippi's extended ban on booze, drinking and also betting flourished across the river in Flowood's Gold Coast. Those businesses closed down when Mississippi became ended up being "wet" in 1966. The state enabled riverboat betting in 1990, and also several casino sites have actually opened up.

Hawkins Field became a crucial United States Army airbase in World War Two, housing the Royal Netherlands Military Flying School after Nazi Germany overran the Netherlands.

Jackson was a crucial center of civil rights demonstrations in the '60s and also was the terminus of the James Meredith March. Meredith was the very first African American to enroll at the U of Mississippi. The very first lung transplant occurred at the U of Mississippi Medical Center in 1963. Malaco Records calls Jackson home and also is a leader in gospel, blues, and soul. Paul Simon tape-recorded at Malaco in 1973.

Harvey Johnson, Jr. became Jackson's first African-American mayor in 1997, and he was a champion for the Convention Facility. Jackson was denoted as one of the ten friendliest cities in the United States in 2013.

Jackson is in Hinds County and also some parts of Madison and also Rankin counties. The eastern boundary is the Pearl River. It's bordered on the north by Ridgeland, on the east by Flowood as well as Richland, the south by Byram and the west by Clinton. It has a total landmass of 113.2 square miles and also is drained by the Big Black as well as Pearl Rivers.

Jackson rests on top of an extinct volcano that's 2,900 feet underground. The buried peak is under the Mississippi Coliseum. Jackson-Evers International Airport terminal has continuous service to six cities.