JACKSON, TEXAS (Van Zandt County). Jackson is at the juncture of State Highway 198 and Farm Road 1651, six miles southwest of Canton in southwestern Van Zandt County. The first settlement in the vicinity was established in 1848, when William Wages built the Old Liberty Church with the help of W. W. Hubbard. In the late 1880s John H. Flapp opened a general store and gristmill in the area, and in 1889 Jackson Kennedy secured a post office for the community. The office was called Jackson and was discontinued in 1907. Some sources suggest the community center eventually shifted to the Union Hill school, a short distance from the post office. During the 1890s the town reached a population of eighty-five and had a general store, a corn mill and gin, and several livestock dealers. The Old Liberty Church was later replaced by a combined church and school at Union Hill. Though Jackson's population dropped to ten by 1910, a rural school operated in the area until 1953, when it was consolidated with the Canton schools. The last recorded population figure for Jackson was fifty in the 1930s. Maps from 1965 and 1984 showed one business and two churches at the site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Samuel Mills, History of Van Zandt County (Canton, Texas, 1950).

Diana J. Kleiner