Jackson is a city in the southern part of Michigan's lower peninsula, between Detroit and Chicago along the highway or Amtrak rail lines.

Horace Blackman began the settlement at a place where several Indian trails crossed. There was some strategy involved in his choice. It was a spot where the Grand River could be forded easily and Blackman planned to build a mill along the river. In honor of President Andrew Jackson, settlers established the town as "Jacksonburg" in 1830. Postal officials tried changing the name to "Jacksonopolis" to avoid confusion with other towns of the same name, but residents finally agreed to the simpler name Jackson.

In spite of the Black Hawk War to the south, Jackson's white settlers maintained an uneasy peace with local Indians. In 1839 and 1840, United States cavalry "escorted" about 1,500 Indians from the area to Detroit, where they were shipped to Fort Howard, Wisconsin. That made it easier to maintain peace, except that the whites couldn't forcibly resettle other whites hundreds of miles away when they couldn't get along.

"Gone to the Tamaracks"

To deal with the problem of whites who broke the peace but couldn't be isolated by race and banished, they built a prison in 1838, which became the most persistent industry in the city's history. People sentenced to prison in Jackson were said to have "gone to the tamaracks," after the tamarack poles used for the stockade. The expression persisted even after stone walls were built around the prison in 1841.

For about fifty years, cheap prison labor was contracted to local manufacturers of furniture, cigars, shoes and other products, possibly contributing to the early prosperity of businesses in Jackson. The state legislature abolished contract prison labor in 1909 after complaints that the practice was corrupt and that it was too much competition with free labor.

Not to be blocked by a little thing like legislation, they started a prison farm, a canning factory, and were soon producing the same kinds of things prisoners had made under the old system, now manufactured on prison grounds or inside state-owned factories. Apparently the corruption was not in making inmates work for 33 cents per day, just that they took too many jobs in privately-owned companies.

The stone walls of the original Michigan State Prison still stand on Cooper Street, now home to a National Guard Armory. The prison was closed in 1928 and newer prisons were built north of town over the years, including one that was billed as the "largest walled prison in the world" at one time, covering over 57 acres. Some of today's Jackson inmates work in a print shop, textile factory, or an optical lab which makes 9,500 pairs of glasses per year.

If you plan to do any actual hitchhiking through Jackson, try to get a ride before you get to town, and make sure it carries you through town and all the way out. Otherwise you may find yourself walking through stretches of Jackson. Signs on some of the major roads read "Prison Area: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers."

Churches and Saloons

The early history of churches in Jackson mingles with the early history of drinking establishments. The first ordained minister to perform church services in the settlement turned Blackman's Tavern into a temporary house of worship. Later, when Baptists found themselves short on manpower to build a church, one of them solicited help from other members of the community, letting it be known that there would be "plenty of good whiskey" available at the construction site for workers.

In the early part of the Twentieth Century leading up to the time of Prohibition, churches and women's groups crusaded for temperance. One Methodist congregation tried to close down a tavern at Greenwood Avenue and Fourth Street by buying the building and using it for a church. Somehow the saloon keeper managed to keep his lease, resulting in a place where you could attend church services on the ground floor or drink your worries away in the basement saloon.

Later churches in Jackson either created no amusing anecdotes in saloons, or buried them in books other than Jackson: An Illustrated History by Brian Deming. Today Jackson is home to at least 90 churches.

Industries That Came and Went

Chances are if you can find a superlative to apply to a Jackson industry, it no longer applies. Site of the first corset factory west of New York, Jackson was the corset capital of the West at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Only one of those companies survived into this century, turning to production of surgical supports, prosthetics and orthotic devices in the 1940s. Once a major rail center, Jackson had more passenger traffic than anywhere else in the state in the 1870s, and only Detroit surpassed the amount of freight shipped through Jackson. More than two dozen car companies sprouted and faded in Jackson, some of them surviving as makers of car parts.

Now Jackson's claim to fame is that it has more golf courses per capita than any city in the US except Sarasota, Florida¹. Golf Digest recognized Jackson as one of the top 15 places to golf out of 309 cities rated, and number four in the best places for golfers to live.

Today, the largest employers in Jackson County are Consumers Power, W. A. Foote Hospital and the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility. It's difficult to judge whether local businesses have been prospering or declining, but the population has dropped in recent years. The 2000 census showed a population of 36,316 in the city of Jackson, down 1000 from the 1990 census.

First Republican Convention

Prominently noted under every "Jackson City Limits" sign today is the designation "Birthplace of the Republican Party." Although an informal meeting took place earlier in Ripon, Wisconsin, the first official meeting of the party was held in Jackson on July 6, 1854, drawing between 3,000 and 5,000 people. Former members of the Whig Party, Free Soil Party and others drafted a platform for the new Republican Party and nominated candidates for state office. Only six years later, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican President of the United States.

If you hear someone in Jackson talk about "Under the Oaks," they're probably refering to the exact location of that first Republican Convention. Because the originally planned meeting place Bronson Hall could not seat everyone, they moved the convention to an oak grove on the outskirts of town. President Taft dedicated a boulder to mark the location in 1910, which became a favorite stop for Republicans on their campaign trails. A plaque on the boulder reads:

HERE UNDER THE OAKS, JULY 6th, 1854, WAS BORN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. DESTINED IN THE THROES OF CIVIL STRIFE TO ABOLISH SLAVERY, VINDICATE DEMOCRACY AND PERPETUATE THE UNION.

Passing Celebrities

In 1902, Hughie Cannon wrote the ragtime song "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey?" about his friend Willard G. Bailey, both of them Jackson residents. Bailey's wife did not appreciate the song.

In its first one hundred years, Jackson was a common stop for touring lecturers and entertainers, from Samuel Clemens to a young Fred Astaire, Jack Benny, Will Rogers, even the Marx Brothers back when they were still known as Julius, Leonard, Arthur and Milton. Jack Paar worked for Jackson television station WIBM in the mid-1930s.

Recent celebrity patrons of the city include actor/writer/director Jeff Daniels, who shot a feature film titled "Super Sucker" in Jackson, and guitar demi-god turned hunting activist Ted Nugent. Terrible Ted the Motor City Madman keeps his "Tedquarters" in Jackson, where he designs and distributes hunting gear, produces an outdoors magazine, even offers booking and outfitting for safaris.

Current Attractions

The Civil War Muster at Cascades Park hosts Michigan's largest battle reenactment each year. Crowds of 30,000 spectators gather to watch as many as 2,000 volunteers in period costume blasting blank muzzle-loaders and cannons across fields set up to resemble actual battle sites. The reenactors stay in camps open to visitors, where you can see authentic tents that would have been used, authentic costumes, tools and utensils. Vendors also set up tents in the style of "sutlers," civilians who followed army camps selling supplies at inflated prices. Like their historical counterparts, these modern suppliers take advantage of spectators who might want to take part in the reenactment next time, selling authentic uniforms, swords, toys, books about the war and books about how soldiers dressed and lived. Bluegrass and acoustic musical groups play throughout the muster, including songs from the period and military marching bands in full regalia.

Summer of 2003 marks the 150th annual Jackson County Fair, with ferris wheels and amusement park rides, exhibitions of livestock, monster truck shows and popular Country singers. Circuses, harness racing and classic car shows are held at the fairgrounds in the off-season.

Other noteworthy events and destinations in Jackson include The Parlour Old Fashioned Ice Cream Shoppe, Hurst Planetarium, Michigan Space and Science Center, Rose Festival, Hot Air Jubilee (as in balloons), Michigan Shakespeare Festival, and several museums.

Other "Firsts" in Jackson

• The first college commencement in a prison occurred Jan 20, 1975 in the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson.
• The first trimline telephone was used in Jackson in 1963.
• The "Ritz" cracker may have originated in the Jaxon Cracker Factory, which was later sold to Nabisco.