Born under the oaks: Jackson's claim on American history

On July 6, 1854, some 1,500 anti-slavery delegates packed into Jackson — too many for any hall in town — so they met outdoors in an oak grove at the edge of the city. There they adopted a platform, chose a slate of candidates, and took a name: the Republican Party. “Under the Oaks” is marked today at Second and Franklin streets, and whatever one’s politics, it’s quite a thing for a mid-sized Michigan city to be the birthplace of one of the world’s oldest political parties.

Jackson’s other landmark is pure showmanship: the Cascades, a 500-foot man-made waterfall of eighteen lighted, music-synchronized tiers that “Captain” William Sparks, a local industrialist and twice-elected mayor, gave the city in 1932. Generations of mid-Michigan kids have sat on its steps on summer nights watching the colored water dance. Add the Falling Waters Trail running southwest along old rail beds, a county wrapped in lakes and farmland, and one of the state’s great county fairs, and Jackson’s mix of history and homegrown spectacle is hard to beat for the price.