JACKSON, the capital city of Mississippi, U.S.A., on the west bank of the Pearl river, 45m. E. of Vicksburg; the county seat of Hinds county. It is on Federal highways 49, 51 and 8o, I has a municipal airport, and is served by the Gulf, Mobile and ' Northern, the Illinois Central, and the New Orleans Great North , ern railways. The population was 22,817 in 1920 (43% negroes) and was 48,282 by the Federal census of 1930. The city has a large trade in cotton and other agricultural products, and its manufac turing industries (including cotton-seed oil mills, iron foundries, woodworking plants and a variety of others) had an output in 1925 valued at $9,681,740. The State capitol, finished in 1903, is a fine building. In the old capitol (built in 1839) Jefferson Davis made his last speech (1884), and it was the scene of the secession convention (1861) and of the "Black and Tan Convention" (i868). Jackson is the seat of the State penitentiary, the State hospital for the insane, and the State institutions for the deaf and the blind; of Millsaps college (Methodist Episcopal, 1890) and Belhaven college (Presbyterian, 1894). In 1821 the site was des
ignated as the seat of the State Government, and in 1822 the town was laid out and named after Andrew Jackson. It was chartered as a city in 1840. During the Civil War it was in the theatre of active campaigning. On May 14, 1863, the Confeder ates, under Johnston, were driven out by Sherman and McPherson. After the fall of Vicksburg, Johnston concentrated his forces here, where he was attacked by Sherman on July 9. Sherman's army entered the city on July 17, 1863, and remained five days, burning a large part of it. In the decade i9oo—io the population of the city increased from 7,816 to 21,262. A commission form of government was adopted in 1912.