Name: Jacksonville, Texas
Address: Jacksonville, TX

From Gum Creek to Jacksonville RoadyGoat

1847

This town started as Gum Creek. In 1847 Jackson Smith built a house and a blacksmith shop on the east bank of the creek, and a post office called Gum Creek opened in 1848. When residents surveyed a townsite in 1850, they named it Jacksonville, honoring both Jackson Smith, whose land it sat on, and Dr. William Jackson, one of the first to build inside the survey. The post office name changed from Gum Creek to Jacksonville that June. Then, in 1872, the International and Great Northern Railroad was laid through Cherokee County and missed the town by a couple of miles. Rather than be bypassed, residents cut a deal, and in the fall of 1872 most of old Jacksonville was picked up and moved about two miles east to sit on the tracks. That new site is downtown today.

Tomato Capital of the World RoadyGoat

1914

Jacksonville led East Texas peach growing from the 1880s until about 1914, then went all in on tomatoes. By the 1920s and 1930s, Cherokee County farmers had nearly 15,000 acres in tomatoes, and roughly 3,000 rail cars of them rolled out of Jacksonville each summer, ripening in transit to markets across the country. The town crowned itself Tomato Capital of the World. In 1934 it threw its first Tomato Festival, and Time magazine took notice. The crop's monument still stands right here downtown: the Tomato Bowl, a football stadium the Works Progress Administration built for the 1940 season out of native red iron-ore rock. Perched on a hill at the end of Commerce Street, it is one of the few downtown stadiums left in Texas. The Tomato Fest still runs every second Saturday in June.

Why the Rock Is Red and the Tomatoes Grew RoadyGoat

1940

The reddish stone in the Tomato Bowl walls is not imported granite. It is local iron ore, quarried from area farms and nicknamed giraffe rock for its blotchy pattern. Cherokee County sits in the East Texas iron ore belt, where the Eocene-age Weches Formation carries iron minerals like limonite and siderite. As those iron compounds weather at the surface, they rust, staining the region's clay and rock the deep red that defines the landscape. That same geology helps explain the tomatoes. The uplands here shed water into loose, sandy, iron-tinted soils that drain fast and warm early in spring, exactly the well-aerated, quick-draining root zone tomatoes prefer over heavy waterlogged ground. So the county's iron didn't just build its stadium. The weathered iron soils helped make it the Tomato Capital.

Poindexter, Clarence Albert [Al Dexter]

1943

Clarence Albert Poindexter, country singer known as Al Dexter, was born in Jacksonville, Texas, in 1902. While working as a house painter, Dexter began performing in local bars and clubs. In the early 1930s he put together a band to perform in the outskirts of Longview, Texas. He signed a recording contract with American Record Corporation in 1936. Dexter's "Honky Tonk Blues," which he wrote with James B. Paris, was the first country song to use the term honky-tonk . In the late 1930s Dexter owned a honky tonk himself, the Roundup Club in Turnertown, Texas. Through his experiences there and in other roadhouses, Dexter developed the idea for his future hit, "Pistol Packin' Mama." Art Satherley, Dexter's producer, helped him by arranging a recording session with Gene Autry 's backup band, for which Dexter had expressed admiration. Dexter recorded "Pistol Packin' Mama" and "Rosalita" with them at Columbia's Hollywood studios. The record was released in 1943 and in its first six months sold a million copies. The song "Pistol Packin' Mama," a controversial number due to its lyrics, remained at Number One on Billboard Magazine's best sellers chart for eight weeks. In 1944, when Billboard started its "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" chart for country music, "Pistol Packin' Mama" was still at the top. "Rosalita" also had a week at Number One, and Dexter received such widespread recognition that he launched national tours. From 1944 through 1948 Dexter recorded other country hits, including "Too Late to Worry," "Wine, Women and Song," and "Calico Rag." The popularity of his honky tonk sound decreased over time. Although he recorded other songs with King, Decca, and Capitol, he never had another hit. In 1971 Dexter was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He had invested in savings and loan, motel, and real estate businesses in Texas and died a wealthy man. On January 28, 1984, Dexter died from a heart attack at his home on Lake Lewisville in Lewisville, Texas. He was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

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Lon Morris College

1875

Oldest junior college in Texas. Founded in Kilgore by Dr. Isaac Alexander, pioneer educator. In 1875 it became property of the East Texas (now the Texas) Conference of the Methodist Church. It was moved to Jacksonville in 1894. A junior college since 1912, renamed Alexander College (1916), it was retitled in 1924 to honor Pittsburg (Tex.) banker R. A.(Lon) Morris. First junior college in Texas with a Phi Theta Kappa scholarship fraternity; Also member Southern Association of Colleges longer than any other junior college in the state.

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Killough Massacre

1838

On October 5, 1838, eighteen members of the Killough family were killed near Jacksonville in the largest Native American attack on settlers in East Texas.

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Jacksonville's Public Square

1838

Jackson Smith, a Republic of Texas soldier and scout who first explored the Gum Creek area in 1838, returned in 1847 and built a house and blacksmith shop where F.C. Hardgraves, James G. Earle, David Templeton and others had started a community. Smith became the first postmaster of Gum Creek in 1848. Two years later, the name changed to Jacksonville. Smith platted a town which eventually grew to dozens of stores and houses plus churches, schools and a hotel. In 1871, the International Railroad Company surveyed their new line a mile to the northeast of Jacksonville. Sarah Fry sold the railroad 75 acres providing that a depot would be located on the tract at Fry's Summit. Most residents and businesses in what became Old Jacksonville bought lots and moved to the new townsite.
 The International Railroad Company platted a new townsite, donating lots for churches and schools, and donating Block 153, bounded by Bolton, Main, Rusk and Larissa streets, to the citizens of Jacksonville as a public square. In 1883, tracks were built diagonally across the square for the narrow-gauge Kansas & Gulf Shortline Railroad. The alignment, later part of the Cotton Belt system, is still seen in a depression running through the park after the rails were removed. Over many years, several park improvements became part of the square's cultural landscape. Early enhancements included tree planting in the 1880s, and a frame bandstand and city water tower completed in the 1900s. A WWI doughboy statue dedicated in 1928 and later memorials recall the sacrifices of local veterans. New Deal projects from the 1930s included a stone bandstand, demolished in the 1960s to make room for a fire station; and a public library, which later became the Vanishing Texana Museum. Later dedicated as Hazel Tilton Park, Jacksonville's Public Square continues to be a focal point for gatherings, celebrations and special events. (2021)

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Jacksonville, TX (Cherokee County)

1847

Jacksonville is an incorporated town on U.S. Highway 69 in northeastern Cherokee County. It began on the east bank of Gum Creek in 1847. That year Jackson Smith built a house and a blacksmith shop in the area; he was appointed postmaster when the Gum Creek post office was authorized in 1848. Soon after, Dr. William Jackson built an office near Smith's shop. In 1850 Smith had a townsite and square surveyed near his home. Since the townsite was on Jackson Smith's land and Dr. Jackson was among the first to build inside the boundaries of the survey, the name Jacksonville was chosen by local citizens for the new town. The post office name was changed from Gum Creek to Jacksonville in June 1850. In 1872 the International-Great Northern Railroad was built through Cherokee County and missed Jacksonville by a few miles. Jacksonville inhabitants worked out an agreement with railroad officials to survey a new townsite on the railroad. In the fall of 1872 most of the original Jacksonville was moved two miles east to the new site on the tracks. The first churches in Jacksonville were built by the Baptists and the Methodists before 1849. During the 1850s a Masonic lodge was organized at the community. The Cherokee Sanitarium was founded in 1919 and continued to serve the city as the Newburn Memorial Hospital in the late 1980s. Jacksonville's first school, opened in 1846, was the second school in the county. The Jacksonville Collegiate Institute, a private school, was opened in 1873. In 1881 a public school, which took over the assets of the institute, was organized. By 1892 Jacksonville had a public school system. Jacksonville College opened in 1899, and a Baptist theological seminary opened in 1957. Lon Morris College (founded in 1854 near Kilgore as the New Danville Masonic Female Academy) operated in Jacksonville until it was closed in 2012. The first newspaper published in Jacksonville, the Texan Intelligencer (begun in 1873), was followed by the Cherokee Argonaut (begun in 1881). In 1910 the Daily Progress was started. By the late 1980s both the Jacksonville Daily Progress and the Cherokee County Banner were being published there. Early in Jacksonville's history, agriculture was the main focus of the local economy. Jacksonville was a leading center of peach production from the 1880s to 1914; thereafter, tomatoes were the primary crop until the 1950s, and the town was dubbed the "tomato capitol of the world." Livestock was-and in the 1980s remained-an important aspect of the economy. In the mid-1980s the manufacture of plastics was the leading local industry. In 1983 a new library and a museum were completed at Jacksonville. In 1904 Jacksonville's population was reported as 1,568. By the 1930s the figure had reached 6,000, and by the late 1950s, some 10,000. During the 1980s it reached 12,000, and in 1990 the town reported 12,765 residents. In the 1990s Jacksonville's economy included tourism, as well as light manufacturing enterprises, retail stores, agricultural businesses, two colleges, a seminary, a hospital, and a clinic. By 2000 the population grew to 13,868. In 2010 the population was 14,544 and in 2016 it was estimated at 14,518.

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Love's Lookout

1904

Love's Lookout, a scenic ridge two miles north of Jacksonville in north central Cherokee County (at 32°02' N, 95°17' W), has an elevation of 720 feet above sea level and rises 240 feet above the surrounding terrain. The ridge is part of a long, flat-topped hill that extends for nine miles. The east side of the hill is a steep escarpment offering vistas into a wide valley below. Mud Creek, a main tributary of the Angelina River, parallels the ridge ten miles to the east. On the ridge's western side the land rises gradually from the Neches River, twelve miles to the west. Conifers and grasses grow in the area's deep, fine sandy loams. During the antebellum Texas period Love's Lookout was a popular recreation spot for townspeople at Larissa, 3½ miles to the northwest. With the advent of the automobile, the area became a favorite site for outings. After 1910 the bluff became known as Love's Lookout, after Wesley Love, who in 1904 bought much of the surrounding area and planted a 600-acre peach farm. After Love's death in 1925 his wife donated a twenty-two-acre tract to the state of Texas for a state park. The state, however, failed to develop the park, and in 1934 the city of Jacksonville purchased an additional twenty-five acres from Love's heir and developed the two tracts of land as a city park. The Work Projects Administration constructed roads and trails, an amphitheater, picnic facilities, a concession stand, and walls along the brink of the hill. Later, an Olympic-sized swimming pool was constructed there with private funds. In 1967 the Love family turned the original tract over to the state highway department, which has since developed it into a roadside park. In 1978 the Texas Historical Commission placed a marker at the site.

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Jacksonville, Texas

Music in Jacksonville

Songs About Jacksonville

Artists From Jacksonville

Rivers & Roads in Song near Jacksonville

History of Jacksonville

From Gum Creek to Jacksonville RoadyGoat

Tomato Capital of the World RoadyGoat

Why the Rock Is Red and the Tomatoes Grew RoadyGoat

Poindexter, Clarence Albert [Al Dexter]

Lon Morris College

Killough Massacre

Jacksonville's Public Square

Jacksonville, TX (Cherokee County)

Love's Lookout

Things to Do in Jacksonville

Everything Near Jacksonville