Creek and Choctaw Indians first lived in the area, and Jackson’s first pioneer settlers arrived about 1800. The village was first called Republicville, then Pine Level, before the Mississippi Territory Legislature incorporated it in 1816 and named it Jackson after President Andrew Jackson. A plat of the town was drawn and lots were advertised across the South, and some street names, including Commerce, Florida, Carrol, and Broad, still survive. The town sprang up quickly and reached a population of 1,500, then briefly declined before the coming of the railroad in 1888 spurred a second period of growth. Construction of the Mobile to Birmingham Railway brought a drawbridge span over the Tombigbee River and drew timbermen into the area, leading to sawmill operations by the Bigbee Lumber Co., C. W. Zimmerman Manufacturing Co., Bolen Brothers, Hemphill, McGowin and Slayton, McCorquodale Brothers, and M. W. Smith. Ochre mining was also a major business, with the clay used for pottery, bricks, paint, fertilizer, and other products, and Ochre Avenue preserves the name of the Sample-Williams Clay and Color Company, which shipped ochre throughout the U.S. Jackson was chosen in 1896 as the site of the First Congressional District’s Agricultural College, and College Avenue honors that school; a building later used as Jackson High School was built there in 1935 and burned in 1984.