Jackson Smith

Jackson Smith built a house and blacksmith shop on the east bank of Gum Creek in 1847. When a post office was authorized there in 1848, he became postmaster. In 1850 he had a townsite and square surveyed near his home. Local people named the town Jacksonville for him and for Dr. William Jackson, an early builder, and the post office took the new name in June 1850. The International-Great Northern passed a few miles from the town, so in fall 1872 most of it moved two miles east to the tracks.

What the plaque says

Jackson Smith A blacksmith by trade, Kentuckian Jackson Smith came to Texas in the 1830s and participated in the War for Independence. He later visited this area as a Republic of Texas scout. In the 1840s, he settled southwest of here in the Gum Creek community. Near there he platted a townsite he called Jacksonville. Smith served as a Confederate officer in the Civil War. In 1872, Jacksonville was moved to its present site along the new railroad. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 23 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 28 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.

More markers nearby

• Jacksonville College — 0.8 mi
• Church Founded by Chaplain Nicholas A. Davis, C.S.A. — 1.3 mi
• Fred Douglass School — 1.4 mi
• Lon Morris College — 1.4 mi