The Farish Street Historic District was a busy black commerce area years ago. Local business leaders want to start to redevelop it by bringing back a few structures right into bars and restaurants. The Alamo Movie theater on historic Farish Street has been renovated and is community owned. Back in the 1930s and also 40s, Robert Johnson and also Jelly Roll Morton lived in the Farish Street district. Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and also Duke Ellington performed on Farish Street.
The Hawkins Field Airport is owned as well as run by the City of Jackson and is made use of by the military as well as civilians. It was opened in 1928, and cement runways were added in 1936. The U.S. Army utilized it for flight training in World War II and greatly increased it. In 1963, jet airplanes began service to Hawkins Field Airport. Hawkins Field Airport sits on 602 acres and also has 2 runways in operation. 2 World War Two runways have been abandoned for many years.
A public, primarily African-America university, Jackson State was established in 1877. The existing area was initially created in 1902 and also currently features 51 buildings on a 245-acre campus. The sports program is a member of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision and also the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Walter Payton is its most well-known 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 going through a renaissance. Habitat for Humanity and also Operation Weed and Seed work hard to bring back the area. Poindexter Park has various restored houses on the National Register of Historic Places. One of the old mansions was built by Mississippi's 2nd governor, George Poindexter. He was a delegate, representative, as well as senator who was born in 1779.
The Mississippi River Basin Model Waterways Experiment Station at Buddy Butts Park was made use of to predict possible floods in the Mississippi River basin from 1949 until 1973 and also sits on 200 acres. It was constructed from 1943 to 1966 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Its purpose was to offer the Military Crops required details to mitigate flooding along the Mississippi River. The location around the Missouri River was finished by 1952 and also modeled the spring floods of that year. It was operational to Memphis by 1959 and also was finished in 1966. However, operational expenses and computer system modeling made the model outdated by 1973. As of 2013, the model is overgrown and also abandoned, but open to the general public.
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 troops over-ran Jackson and burned it to the ground. There was a natural gas boom in the 1920s, and also it's nicknamed "The City with Soul."
The Jackson area has a population of 579,332. It belonged to the Choctaw Indians at one time. Mississippi Choctaw are currently part of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and live in a number of Native-American towns in the state.
The initial European settler was Louis LeFleur, and Jackson was originally known as LeFleur's Bluff. In 1821, a state-commissioned report said LeFleur's Bluff was an attractive location and had plenty of water and timber and also accessibility to the Natchez Trail. The area after that came to be the seat of state government. It was mapped in 1822 in a grid pattern, and city blocks contain many parks. The railroad went through Jackson in 1840, which stimulated development after the War Between the States.
Jackson was a production center for the Confederacy during the War Between the States, making it a target of Union troops in 1863. Considering that the city was ruined, few antebellum structures have actually made it through. However, the Governor's Mansion, the Old Capitol building, and the Jackson City Hall remain.
After the War Between the States, economic recovery was slow. Mule-drawn streetcars became electric in 1899. A brand-new capitol was constructed in 1903.
Born in Jackson in 1909, author Eudora Welty won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for, "The Optimist's Daughter." The Jackson Public Library was named after her, and her residence is a National Historic Landmark. Jackson experienced a boom in the very early 20th century, and a new Union Terminal was built. The King Edward Hotel opened in 1923 and also was a facility for prestigious events. The 1919 Standard Life Building set the record for the largest reinforced concrete structure at the time.
Natural gas fields were found in 1930 resulting in an additional boom that minimized the impacts of the Great Depression. This sector trailed off in 1955.
Throughout Mississippi's extensive ban on booze, alcohol consumption and betting flourished across the river in Flowood's Gold Coast. Those businesses shut down when Mississippi legalized alcohol in 1966. The state allowed riverboat betting in 1990, and numerous casino sites have actually opened.
Hawkins Field became an essential United States Military airbase in World War Two, housing the Royal Netherlands Military Flying School after Nazi Germany overran the Netherlands.
Jackson was a crucial hub of civil rights protests in the '60s and was the terminus of the James Meredith March. Meredith was the very first African American to register at the U of Mississippi. The very first lung transplant took place at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1963. Malaco Records calls Jackson its home base and is a leader in gospel, blues, and soul. Paul Simon recorded at Malaco in 1973.
Harvey Johnson, Jr. became Jackson's very first African-American mayor in 1997, and also he was a champ for the Convention Center. Jackson was denoted as one of the 10 friendliest cities in the United States in 2013.
Jackson is in Hinds County and some areas of Madison as well as 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 an overall area of 113.2 square miles and also is drained by the Big Black and Pearl Rivers.
Jackson sits on top of a dead volcano that's 2,900 feet underground. The buried peak is under the Mississippi Coliseum. Jackson-Evers International Airport has non-stop service to six cities.