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The first city to be named for general and later President [[Andrew Jackson]], Jackson has long been important as a seat of county government. Its proximity to the larger city of [[Cape Girardeau, Missouri|Cape Girardeau]], for which it serves as a bedroom community of sorts, has made it one of the fastest-growing cities in the region.
The first city to be named for general and later President [[Andrew Jackson]], Jackson has long been important as a seat of county government. Its proximity to the larger city of [[Cape Girardeau, Missouri|Cape Girardeau]], for which it serves as a bedroom community of sorts, has made it one of the fastest-growing cities in the region.
==History==
The settlement that became Jackson was the second to be established in the county, after Cape Girardeau itself. The first settlers in the area were Stephen and Abraham Byrd, who arrived with their families from [[Tennessee]] about 1800 and made their residence along a local stream that came to be known as Byrd's Creek. Byrd Township, formed in 1807, was named for the family, and one of the names for the new community that sprang up along Byrd's and Hubble Creek was Byrdstown (or Birdstown). Though Cape Girardeau was by far the older and more prominent settlement, the commissioners tasked in 1815 with choosing a permanent seat of justice for the county settled on this town, as it was more centrally located. (That Abraham Byrd was one of the commissioners may have played a part in the decision.) In recognition of Andrew Jackson's recent triumph at the [[Battle of New Orleans]], the new county seat was renamed Jackson.<ref>https://shsmo.org/collections/manuscripts/ramsay/cape-girardeau</ref> A courthouse was erected in 1818, by which time Jackson had some 300 residents, and the town was incorporated the following year.
Jackson grew rapidly during the antebellum period, with several prominent lawyers, merchants, and physicians making their home there. McKendree Chapel, a [[Methodist]] log church, was erected in 1819, the first church built by the denomination in Missouri and the oldest surviving [[Protestant]] church west of the [[Mississippi River]]. Also in 1819, the ''Missouri Herald'', Missouri's third newspaper, began to be printed in Jackson. Despite such setbacks as two cholera epidemics (in 1833 and 1852), the disorders of the [[Civil War]], and a fire that destroyed the courthouse in 1870 (a new one would be built later that year, with the third and current one completed in 1908), the town's development continued into the late 19th century. In 1884, a branch of the Iron Mountain railroad was extended to Jackson, connecting it more rapidly with the rest of Southeast Missouri. That same year, the town voted to incorporate as a fourth-class city. A 1912 account described Jackson as having a population of 2,105, some 50 businesses including two flour mills and several factories, a good public school system, several large churches, and two newspapers (one English-speaking, one German).<ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=G-AlAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA261#v=onepage&q&f=false</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Missouri Cities and Towns]]
[[Category:Missouri Cities and Towns]]