The city of Jackson — county seat of Madison County — has had the nickname "The Hub City" for decades. The moniker is a nod to Jackson’s history as a railroad town, its location halfway between Nashville and Memphis, and its equal distance from both the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.
Jackson’s roots, however, extend deep into the area’s rich history in agriculture dating to the first farm families that came to the region in 1819 and settled in an area now known as Cotton Gin Grove. It is thought that additional people settled further west on the banks of the Forked Deer River in a community they originally called ‘Alexandria.’ It was later renamed in honor of Andrew Jackson for his heroism in the Battle of New Orleans.
Jackson became the county seat in
September 1822, 10 months after the
Tennessee General Assembly created
Madison County. Jackson was chosen
due to its status as a transportation
center for agricultural products on the Forked Deer River system, which provides drainage of the central portion of West Tennessee.
“In the early days, the river played a role seasonally with rising water for bulk commodities,” says Madison County Historian Ricky Long. “People in that area would dam up a portion of the Forked Deer River to help raise the water to a level suitable for farmers to get their cotton bales on a flatboat and ship them west.”
Over time, as Madison County began to grow in both population and agriculture production of crops like cotton, it became clear that rail transportation was going to be needed. After years of work spent on the railroads, the first passenger train rolled into Jackson in 1858.
“This was sorely needed,” says Long. “The 1860 agriculture census recorded 1,500 farms over three acres and a total of 160,000 acres being used for agricultural purposes in Madison County, which shows that farming truly was the heart of this community since the beginning.”
Those assets were disrupted as the Civil War wreaked havoc on the area and much of the vital community resources like farms, rail lines, and families, he says.
“We see in the next census taken in 1870 that the total number of acres being farmed in the county is 94,000 acres and the total number of farms over 500 acres goes from 51 in 1860 to only five farms after the war,” says Long. “The war truly devasted the area, and it took several decades to see it return to where it was before.”
The rail business had to start over, too. And during the rebuilding, legendary Illinois Central Railroad engineer Casey Jones came to make his home in Jackson. Today, the house where he lived and many of his possessions are preserved at the Casey Jones Village, which remains one of Tennessee's Top 10 Travel Attractions.
The railroad system in Jackson led to the establishment of many additional businesses in Madison County, including cottonseed oil mills and textile mills like Bemis Mill.
“The town of Bemis was established around the mill, which was built in 1901,” says Jack Wood, librarian for the Tennessee Room at the Madison County Library. “For the next 50 plus years, if you lived in Bemis, you worked at the mill making yarn and weaving fabric from local cotton. Bemis Brothers Bag Company owned the supporting town businesses, houses, and everything else. The southern Madison County town is on the National Register of Historic Places.”
Procter & Gamble organized the Buckeye Cotton Oil Company in 1901 to provide a reliable supply of cottonseed oil for their Ivory brand soap and Crisco shortening. One of their largest mills was centered in Jackson for many years.
As Jackson became more important to the area, its reputation made it attractive to the University of Tennessee (UT) as the school chose to locate the first West Tennessee Experiment Station nearby in 1907. Now called the West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center, the facility is the oldest research center in the UT Institute of Agriculture system, outside of the original location in Knoxville.
“We have come a long way since we first planted our roots here in Madison County,” says Scott Stewart, the Research Center Director. “Today, the AgResearch and Education Center is the headquarters for West Tennessee Extension services and is the workplace of more than 10 full-time faculty members and 60 full-time employees. It contains 647 acres used for research and community education.”
The timing of the center’s opening came at a pivotal moment for local farmers, as the station’s original 175 acres was used to conduct research on the Mexican cotton boll weevil, a pest that devastated the crop throughout the South.
In the last decade, the experiment station has worked on research and educational efforts that have helped farmers increase corn, cotton, soybean, and other crop yields exponentially and has helped to increase the public’s interest in their farmer neighbors.
“The UT experiment station is a staple to the Jackson community — and not just for traditional agriculture research,” says Stewart. “It has beautiful gardens and seasonal events that attract people of all backgrounds to come together to learn about gardening and how they can do their part to help our local farmers.”
Today, Madison County offers a wide variety of economic, cultural, and educational benefits. It is the home of Union University, Lane College, the University of Memphis Lambuth Campus, Tennessee College of Applied Technology, and Jackson State Community College.
When the last agricultural census was taken in 2017, Madison County was home to 549 farms that spread across 151,241 acres, with 71% of those being used to raise row crops.
“Many farmers in our community are turning to agritourism to help keep their farms alive and thriving,” says Long. “A lot of them have ancestors that helped settle this area before Madison County had even been created, and they are willing to change course and try something new to keep the history alive. They want to maintain Jackson’s reputation as the Hub City.”
Learn more about Madison County history, things to do there, and their Bicentennial celebrations at www.madisoncountytn.gov.