WHERE'S CHARLIE HODGE?: TOWN'S NAMESAKE CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY

That's right if "Old Hickory" was alive today he'd be really old, 230 to be exact.

March 15, 1767, Andrew Jackson was born in the Carolinas.

Little did the lad know at that time that someday a town in Missouri, of all places, would be the first to honor him by giving the town his name.

When I became the editor of the Jackson USA many different sources remarked that this was the first town named after the seventh president of the United States.

Now I have to be honest with you. I had some doubts about a town from Missouri to be the first to honor a president that was born near the border of South and North Carolina and later became famous while living in Tennessee.

I also thought that maybe, just maybe Louisiana or Alabama would have named a town in honor of him, due to his heroics in military campaigns in those states.

So I did some light research. This is the only type of research journalists do now days.(Poking fun at your trade is always fun, I think.)

And from my intense (10-15 minute) search I noticed that none of my predecessors mentioned the town that I thought would be the obvious challenger to the Jackson, Mo., claim.

Some mentioned Jackson, S.C., and said that it was named after another man named Jackson.

My predecessors went on to discount other Jacksons around the United States.

As I read Jackson, Ky., Jackson, Miss., and others would fall.

But there was no mention of the town I thought would have the best shot at being first.

I wondered why every article named off Jacksons from many different states, but they never mentioned any Jackson, Tenn.

Was there a conspiracy to keep Jackson, Tenn., in the dark?

All of the sudden I was almost intrigued.

And so my mind was briefly occupied with this mystery.

I made a quick call to the Jackson, Tenn., Chamber of Commerce.

I asked the question "When was your town named Jackson and who was it in honor of?"

They didn't know, but they took my number and called a local historian.

Now, I knew that Jackson, Tenn., was named after "Old Hickory" because it is right in the middle of the Jackson Purchase.

I'm from Mayfield, Ky., which is also a part of the Jackson Purchase. So I grew up knowing the importance of Andrew Jackson to Western Kentucky and Tennessee.

Well, not long after my initial call to Jackson, Tenn., I received a call back saying that the town of Jackson, Tenn., was renamed in honor of Andrew Jackson in 1822.

I made one last ditch effort and contacted Jacksonville, Fla., (it seems as though I have a lot of time on my hands), but this was in vain, that town was named in 1822, as well.

Well then, that proves it. Jackson, Mo. was the first. As we all know it was named after Andrew Jackson in December, 1814.

Why the town was named after him before he achieved true greatness at the Battle of New Orleans (Jan. 8, 1815) or as president of the United States from 1828-1836, I'm not sure.

Further reading took me to an answer. Jackson had many different names that it could have been named.

It almost was named Ashley, since the land purchased for the town was owned by a family named Ashley.

It almost was named in honor of Louis Lorimier, but the early settlers decided against it.

It was also called Byrdstown prior to becoming a town.

As I read along, it turns out that rural settlers that came from the Carolinas and Tennessee liked Andrew Jackson for his politics and his military feats and they were the voices that prevailed in the naming of the town.

So upon further review (and really not all that thorough of a review) I hereby proclaim again that which many of you already knew, Jackson, Mo., was the first town to be named after Andrew Jackson.

Tune in next week when I write about something that everybody already knows about.

Michael Wells is the editor of the Jackson USA Signal.