[5] For centuries, many indigenous peoples called this area home, including the Cheyenne, Ioway, and Dakota tribes.

In 1851, the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux opened the region to white settlement in exchange for government payments.

[6] The first settlers in what is now Jackson County—William, George, and Charles Wood—established a trading post near the Des Moines River around the same time.

[7] On March 26, 1857, the Wahpekute Dakota Chief Inkpaduta and his band attacked the settlement in the Spirit Lake Massacre.

Two months later, the Minnesota legislature organized the area into a county, naming it after Saint Paul merchant Henry Jackson.

The temporary county seat was at the townsite of Springfield, now renamed Jackson.

In August 1862, the Dakota, angry at late payments from the government, skirmished with settlers; one such skirmish compelled some Dakota leaders to attack government buildings in the Minnesota River, starting the U.S.-Dakota War.

Warriors raided a community of Norwegian immigrants in Belmont Township, north of Jackson, killing 13 and wounding three.

Life remained difficult; there were no wagon roads, no bridges, no churches, and only one school.

The threat of attack remained, and the region was susceptible to disasters, including prairie fires, severe blizzards, crop failures, and plagues of grasshoppers.

But the pioneers survived and helped establish the agricultural and industrial community Jackson is today.

[9] The city lies along Interstate 90, which runs east to west the entire width of Minnesota.

Jackson is in Minnesota's 1st congressional district, represented by Republican Brad Finstad.