A history of Jackson,
since 1826
Postcards, papers and photographs of Jackson from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Founded in 1826, Jackson began as a 303-acre (1.23 km2) plot purchased for the purpose of starting the town. The plot was divided into squares and each square into lots. The first buyer of a lot in the new town was John D. Swift of Newton County, Georgia. During the Civil War, much of Jackson was razed by the army of General William T. Sherman during his March to the Sea. After the war, Jackson, like much of the South, struggled economically for decades. Jackson remained little more than a small village until the arrival of the railroads in the latter half of the 19th century. On May 5, 1882, the first train arrived in Jackson, heralding a new era in the transportation of people and goods.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Jackson’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewJackson Public School and Auditor…, 1908: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Jackson
See all 10 →
Jackson, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Jackson Public School and Auditorium (1908) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom the Library of Congress (5). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.