Jacksonville's Public Square

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, and two years later the name changed to Jacksonville. He platted a town that eventually grew to dozens of stores and houses plus churches, schools and a hotel. In 1871, the International Railroad Company surveyed its new line a mile northeast of Jacksonville, and Sarah Fry sold the railroad 75 acres on condition 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 the new townsite, donated lots for churches and schools, and gave block 153, bounded by Bolton, Main, Rusk and Larissa streets, to the citizens of Jacksonville as a public square. In 1883, tracks for the narrow-gauge Kansas & Gulf Shoreline Railroad were built diagonally across the square, and the alignment, later part of the cotton belt system, remains visible in a depression through the park after the rails were removed. Over many years, the square gained features that shaped its cultural landscape, including tree planting in the 1880s, a frame bandstand and city water tower completed in the 1900s, a WWI Doughboy statue dedicated in 1928 and later memorials to local veterans, and New Deal projects in the 1930s including a stone bandstand and a public library that later became the Vanishing Texana Museum. Later dedicated as Hazel Tilton Park, Jacksonville Public Square continues to serve as a focal point for gatherings, celebrations and special events.

Jacksonville, Texas · United States