Jackson, AL news and local guide

After a decline, the town's second boom came with the railroad in 1888, when the Mobile to Birmingham line bridged the Tombigbee with a drawbridge. Timbermen followed, and companies such as Bigbee Lumber, C. W. Zimmerman Manufacturing, McGowin and Slayton and M. W. Smith ran sawmills here. Ochre mining was another big business, and Ochre Avenue recalls the Sample-Williams Clay and Color Company, which shipped the clay across the country. During the Civil War salt works operated from Stave Creek to Jackson Creek between 1862 and 1864, and the Confederates built Fort Carney on Carney's Bluff just south of town; its cannon now stands in front of City Hall. In 1896 Jackson was chosen for the First Congressional District's Agricultural College, recalled by College Avenue. From April 6, 1945, to March 12, 1946, a prisoner-of-war camp on Ochre Avenue held 253 German prisoners, many from Rommel's Afrika Korps, who worked for local lumber companies for 80 cents a day. Timber still drives the economy, and a paper mill is the city's largest employer. The Jackson Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places. Sources The Historical Marker Database: Jackson; City of Jackson; Jackson Prisoner of War Camp; Upper Salt Works (Clarke County Historical Society and others) Wikipedia: Jackson, Alabama