24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Jackson Jackson, MN

Jackson is the county seat and largest city of Jackson County in southwestern Minnesota, near the Iowa border, where the Des Moines River flows through the county.

Jackson was originally called Springfield: in July 1856 the brothers William, George and Charles Wood established a trading post near the Des Moines River, and the town was laid out under the Springfield name that year.

Jackson County was organized in May 1857 and named for Henry Jackson, the first merchant in St. Paul, and the townsite of Springfield was renamed Jackson; a post office called Jackson has operated since 1858.

On March 26, 1857, Chief Inkpaduta and his Wahpekute Dakota band attacked area settlements in the Spirit Lake Massacre, and in August 1862, during the U.S.-Dakota War, raiders killed 13 Norwegian immigrants in nearby Belmont Township — twice in five years the county was left almost completely depopulated.

The 2020 census counted 3,323 people in Jackson; the 2010 census had counted 3,299 people in 1,489 households.

Fort Belmont in Jackson is an open-air historic site with an 1873 farmhouse, a blacksmith shop, a log cabin and stockade, and the 1902 Delafield Lutheran Church, recalling the stockade settlers built for protection in the 1860s.

Ashley Park in Jackson contains the Olson-Slaabakken cabin, the oldest structure in Jackson County.

The Jackson County Courthouse, constructed in 1908 with murals adorning its courtroom and rotunda, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Jackson County Fair Village at the county fairgrounds in Jackson preserves 20 historical buildings.

Interstate 90 and U.S. Highway 71 are the main routes through Jackson, and the Iowa Great Lakes region, including Spirit Lake and West Okoboji Lake, lies just south of the city across the state line.