The state and city of Jackson are feuding over Smith-Wills Stadium. Today's edition of Flashback takes a look at how Jackson obtained the Smith-Wills property on Lakeland Drive.
Once upon a time, Jackson had a park at the State Fairgrounds. However, there were problems as the Clarion-Ledger reported in 1939:
City fathers desired the current site on Lakeland Drive. It once was the site of the State Asylum. However, there was opposition at first as reported in this April 19, 1940 Clarion-Ledger article.
However, Jackson's efforts were not in vain as it got what it wanted in 1944.
Success was achieved on May 6, 1944.
The city paid the state $50,000 to lease the property ($894,000 in 2024 dollars). The deed contained a reverter clause that stated the land would revert back to the state if the property was not used for "park purposes.
Such is the history of the Jackson Park.
18 comments:
What remains to be seen is whether the race card will trump the reverter card.
deed shmeed. Chockwe Sr. wanted a Costco, and Junior is trying to make some kind of hero out of him, as the Founding Father of the Republic of New Afrika.
When did the landfill operation commence on the park land?
The party of the first part shall be deemed racist whereupon the party of the second part shall be deemed victorious by default.
Well that should shut up the idiot in the previous thread that said you were making it up, KF. But we know he won't. He'll cope and seethe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8MZBUoQt68
The cigar bar wasn't enough?
I bet the CoJ's defense will be "but the deed didn't say that 100% of the land had to be used for a park"
The state is going to be equitably estopped from taking the land back.
Rebuild the asylum, we have several to commit.
I am curious as to the footprint of that 313 acres of land. The stadium and the adjoining Jamie Fowler Boyle Park look like 40 acres, give or take. Does the 313 acres include the AG museum, AG cafe, Crawdad hole, Central MS Planning and Development, IHL, DWFP, Public Broadcasting... Or does the property include ballfields south of Lakeland.
Where did all those agencies get their land? Was it carved out of the 313 acres?
Good question.
Sorry for the short notice.
Ribbon cutting at the Keith Haring Fitness Court in Belhaven Heights Park September 26!
https://www.greaterbelhaven.com/event-5852545
What took so long you might ask?
"This is a fitness court and a one-of-a-kind art installation developed by the National Fitness Campaign in partnership with the Keith Haring Foundation. Jackson was selected by the Keith Haring Foundation as one of the national sites for the court in 2019. Though the project received funding, the installation of the project stalled after the equipment was procured due to the pandemic. The equipment had remained in storage since 2019. This year, the Greater Belhaven Foundation proposed relocating the fitness court to Belhaven Heights Park in order to link it with the Museum Trail and to add it to the park’s assets. Thanks to the Belhaven Heights community and our Ward Seven Council women, Virgi Lindsey, the City of Jackson agreed to relocate the court to the Belhaven Heights Park. The Greater Belhaven Foundation’s Community Improvement District committee provided a site design, facilitated work with groundwork contractors, and coordinated with National Fitness Campaign installers. In July, the Keith Haring Fitness Court was finally installed."
313 acres is a LOT of land of which the area occupied by Smith Wills is only a tiny part. Did the city already convey the bulk of that land back to the state for creation of the Ag museum, etc.? And how did operation of a garbage dump as late as the 1960s constitute an allowed "park" use under state law if a cigar shop that had previously been leased out to a variety of bars and restaurants for decades now warrants repossession. Should be an interesting court case.
I suspect the referenced articles may have more to do with the land that where Riverside Park (now Lefleur's Bluff State Park) is located than Smith Wills specifically.
From viewing the county mapping software it appears the asylum property is roughly bound by Lakeland Drive on the south, Eastover Drive on the north, the interstate on the west, and Ridgewood Road on the east. It has been broken into many parcels and may have included the land where The District was developed since that was part of the Deaf School. Smith Wills and the park are in the same parcel of 44.5 acres. Almost all of the property is in the state’s name and listed as the asylum property. There are some private parcels on Lakeland Lane (Eastbrooke, the nursing home and apartments). A few parcels are in other state agency names.
I seem to remember that the State obtained Riverside Park because the City of Jackson didn't have the resources to maintain it any more, and it was then converted to Lefleur's Bluff State Park. Does anyone have any history of that transaction, and if that might have any bearing on the current situation of deed terms? And the question about the 313 acres in total size would probably be explained if the old Riverside Park made up the bulk of that acreage, and Smith Wills is just a ~40acre chunk.
The Old Asylum used to be where current UMC is now. With the cemetery & paupers field between current UMC and the interstate. I wonder exactly what was considered Asylum property ? I know they likely had fields & gardens, but that was they draw in moving to Whitfield to take have the 2000+ acre land that was the old penal farm. If they had from State Street at UMC to IHL off of Ridgewood that's WAY more than the 300ish acres mentioned.
There's more information including some overlay mapping of the Old Asylum and current UMC.
https://asylumhillproject.org/
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