JACKSON COUNTY

Aunt Polly Williams
PHOTO: Jackson County Historical Society

County Seat: Gainesboro

Back in the 1920s, “Aunt” Polly Williams was the proprietor of the only hotel in Gainesboro. If you wanted to eat and you didn’t want to cook for yourself, you had to go to her hotel. At the time, Cordell Hull, who later became the Secretary of State under Franklin Roosevelt, held court in Gainesboro from time to time. The judge would stay at Aunt Polly’s hotel whenever he was there.

 

Here is what happened one day, from the book Steamboatin’ on the Cumberland by Byrd Douglas:


Cordell Hull
PHOTO: Library of Congress

“Exasperated with Judge Hull because he did not adjourn court immediately when she rang the dinner bell, (Aunt Polly) came out on the (town) square, rang the bell incessantly and shouted ‘Court or no Court, Cordell Hull or no Cordell Hull, you better git over here in a hurry and eat my food while it’s hot or you won’t eat it at all.’

 

“Thereafter at the first tap of the bell all proceedings stopped and court recessed without the slightest formality. The Judge for once had met his match.”


PHOTO: Jürgen Schieber, University of Texas/Arlington
Jackson County is also the site of the Flynn Creek Meteor Crater -- a two-mile wide depression in the ground that scientists believe was caused by a meteor that struck the earth 360 million years ago. For more on the Flynn Creek Crater, click here.

Here's a recent photo of the Jackson County Courthouse.

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