Jackson, Missouri

Jackson is the county seat of and second-largest city of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. It is one of the larger cities in Southeast Missouri, with a population of 13,758 at the 2010 census.

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, 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. 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).

The city's growth, which remained steady through the early 20th century, accelerated following the expansion of the Jackson public school district in 1954, which subsequently encompassed most of central Cape County, and the construction of Interstate 55 in the 1960s, which passed just east of town. Following this, the business district shifted southeast, as many companies wished to be closer to the interstate traffic, and many Cape Girardeau residents moved to the Jackson vicinity, using it as a suburb of sorts. It grew especially rapidly during the 1970s and 1990s, during which it passed the 10,000 mark for the first time.

In 2011, Jackson was ranked the 59th most livable small town in the United States by CNN's Money Magazine. It has also received highly positive evaluations from Missouri Life magazine and other organizations.

Geography

Jackson is located slightly south of the geographic center of Cape Girardeau County, its city center about nine miles northwest of downtown Cape Girardeau. The original area of settlement is just east of Hubble Creek, centered on the intersection of Main and High Streets (where the courthouse is located); since then, the city's boundaries have been expanded four times, especially (and most recently) to the east and southeast, for example along Jackson Boulevard, the main thoroughfare and home to a large number of its businesses. The official coordinates are 37°22’48”N 89°39’29”W.

The city has a total area of 10.96 square miles, all but 0.02 of them land. As part of the eastern foothills of the Ozark Plateau, its topography is characterized by gently rolling hills, slightly more rugged to the east, with several high points of around 600 feet. The average elevation is 463 feet.

Jackson is a meeting point for most of the major highways in the county. Interstate 55 runs northwest to southeast along the city's eastern boundary, while the intersection of Jackson Boulevard and South Hope Street is also the junction of three other routes: Missouri State Highway 25, whose northern terminus is there; State Highway 34, which runs across the city from west to east as Jackson Boulevard; and U.S. Route 61, which enters the city from the north, then turns east at the junction and continues with Highway 34 to I-55 and on into Cape Girardeau.