Jackson, the capital of Mississippi

From Natchez to the middle of the state

Mississippi’s first seats of government were in the old river country of the southwest. Natchez was the territorial capital from 1798, though no capitol was ever built there; in 1802 the government moved six miles east to the town of Washington, where the assembly often met in Charles de France’s tavern and where the 1817 constitutional convention met. After statehood the first session opened at Washington, and Natchez served as the capital for the next few years, with lawmakers often meeting in a private house called Texada.

By then the state’s people were moving away from the Natchez region. The 1820 Treaty of Doak’s Stand had opened a large area of Choctaw land in the center of the state to settlement, and in 1821 the Legislature, meeting temporarily at Columbia, set up a commission to find a permanent capital on a navigable river near the middle of Mississippi.

Le Fleur’s Bluff

The commissioners chose Le Fleur’s Bluff on the Pearl River, named for the man who had run a trading post there. It was high ground near navigable water, with good water and fertile soil. A new town was laid out on the site and named for Andrew Jackson, and the Legislature first met there on December 23, 1822.

Jackson’s future as the capital was not secure at first. The town grew slowly, and several attempts to move the government elsewhere nearly succeeded. The question was settled only when the 1832 constitutional convention required that Jackson remain the seat of government until at least 1850. It has been the capital ever since.

The Civil War years

In May 1863, during the Civil War, the Confederate state government left Jackson. For the next two years it operated from eastern Mississippi, with legislative sessions at Columbus in late 1863 and February 1865 and at Macon in 1864, and state officials also at Enterprise and Meridian. In May 1865, at the war’s end, Governor Charles Clark called the Legislature back to Jackson, and the provisional government under William L. Sharkey sat there from June 1865.

The Old Capitol

Jackson’s 1839 capitol still stands. Designed by William Nichols in the Greek Revival style, it is now the Old Capitol Museum.

The 1903 Capitol

The current Mississippi State Capitol, the third built in Jackson, stands on the site of the old state penitentiary. It was paid for with back taxes the state won in a lawsuit against the Illinois Central Railroad, at an initial cost of $1,093,641. Designed by Theodore C. Link in the Beaux Arts style, it went up in just 28 months, from 1901 to 1903, and was dedicated on June 3, 1903.

The outer walls are Indiana limestone set on a base of Georgia granite. On top of the dome stands a solid-copper eagle covered in gold leaf, 8 feet tall with a 15-foot wingspan. Inside, the building still uses its 4,750 original light fixtures, 750 of them in the rotunda. It was named a Mississippi Landmark in 1986 and a National Historic Landmark in 2016.

Visiting

The Capitol is open to visitors. The Legislature’s tour information page has current details, and it publishes a self-guided tour booklet.