The City of Jackson was founded in 1821 at the site of a trading post situated on a bluff on the west bank of the Pearl River. Legend tells that the trading post was operated by a French-Canadian trader named Louis LeFleur, and the town originally was call LeFleur’s Bluff.

The Mississippi State legislature wanted the seat of government moved out of the Natchez area and into a more central location. It commissioned three men to locate an ideal place for a town that could become the state capital.

After surveying areas north and east of Jackson, Thomas Hinds, James Patton and William Lattimore proceeded southwest along the Pearl River until they reached LeFleur'’ Bluff in Hinds County. Their report to the General Assembly was this location had beautiful and healthful surroundings, good water, abundant timber, navigable waters, and nearness to the Natchez Trace.

A legislative act dated November 28, 1821, authorized the location to be the permanent seat of government for the state and that it would be named Jackson, in honor of Major General Andrew Jackson who would later become the seventh president of the United States.

During the Civil War, the town was ravaged and burned three times by Union troops under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. Surprisingly, the City Hall, which was built in 1846 for less than $8,000, was spared the torch. It was rumored that Sherman bypassed the building, which is still the working seat of municipal government, because it housed a Masonic Lodge and that the Union leader was a mason. More likely, its use as a hospital was the reason the building was not burned.

Although less than 8,000 people lived in the Jackson area at the turn of the century, its population began accelerating rapidly after 1900, and it is now one of the dynamic growth areas of the Sunbelt. The latest figures put Jackson’s population at 202,062.

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