Downtown Jackson

Downtown Jackson and County Courthouse 07-18-2013Buddy Jim Stone, still vibrating from excitement after chasing a huge magnet up the Mississippi River yesterday rousted me out of bed to go to breakfast Thursday morning. I took him to the Pie Bird in Fruitland.

I got some work done in the afternoon and hooked up with him for dinner. He was in a dead cow mood, but didn’t want to go to the chain steak joints around the I-55 / mall area.

We headed to Tractors Classic American Grill in downtown Jackson. Not a lot of stores were open, but the street had plenty of cars and trucks parked on it. (Watch out when you open your passenger side door: the curb is high enough that Jim smashed my car door into it. Twice. Once in, and once on the way out. I think it was the scientist in him. He wanted to prove the event was reproducible.)

Good service, decent food

I was pleasantly surprised to find they have a non-smoking area that was more smoke-free than my last visit several years ago. Our waitress was friendly, helpful and attentive. My medium steak was a little overcooked, but not enough to send back. Everything else, including a fresh strawberry pie, was excellent.

After a number of glasses of wine, Jim volunteered to pick up the check.

I think he’s going to use my photos to prove this was a business trip. He was going on and on about how he was prepared to take the bullet if anyone on the riverbank took a potshot at his magnet.

Then, he went and banged my car door on the curb again.

Ross’s Leaves Downtown Jackson

Longtime downtown Jackson business Ross Furniture is moving to East Jackson Blvd. from South High Street, a story in The Missourian reported June 12, 2012. The store had been at that location since 1979. As Cape’s business center has shifted west, I guess it’s only logical that Jackson’s would move east. The furniture store had one of the two bay windows that existed in the Courthouse Square area. It must have been exciting to look up and down the street and toward the courthouse Back in The Day.

Looking north toward Courthouse

Late afternoon isn’t the best time in of the day to shoot a north-south street. I was limited to shooting the businesses on the east side of the street because of dark shadows.

Even though I worked at The Jackson Pioneer, I have very few memories of Jackson’s main drag. I covered lots of governmental meetings and school activities, but there must not have been much happening in the business district.

Well, I have vague memories of a bit of a stir when one of The Pioneer’s editors developed a strange obsession with a local high school girl a third his age. When the girl’s father, one of our largest (and, to be honest, few) advertisers refused to let them date, the editor picketed the father’s place of business. I’m not sure even that was enough to get you fired at The Pioneer, but he didn’t last long. One of these days I’ll get around to writing about the collection of misfits we had working there.

Other Jackson stories

Photo gallery of South High Street businesses

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.