June 29, 1870

Nicholas Jackson sold a choice piece of land to the Cairo and Fulton Railroad under the condition that the railroad company establish a depot in the section adjacent to Jackson’s land. Surveys had been done for the Cairo and Fulton Railroad before the Civil War, but little had been accomplished. Jackson had moved to Gray Township following the war and had begun to buy up land along the proposed railroad right of way. Jackson then had a town site platted and, at first, called the town Jackson. The first train over the Cairo and Fulton Railroad from Argenta (Pulaski County) to Jackson Springs, as it was later called, ran on June 3, 1871. In another plat filed in 1872, Jackson called the town Jacksonville.