Independence Square in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, has been in the middle of some of the most pivotal events in local and U.S. history. Throughout this entire 185+year history, Jackson County's Courthouse on Independence Square has stood as a monument to the past and symbol for our future. After its 2013 restoration, what a perfect 'time' to "wind the clock" as we look back on the history of Independence Square and Jackson County's Historic Truman Courthouse. The Jackson County Historical Society, located in the Historic Truman Courthouse, promotes the study, appreciation, and...

By the close of the Civil War in 1865 all American slaves became free citizens. Suddenly a new life dawned for them and their descendants. Arthur Jackson, a slave born in 1856 in Kanawha County, Virginia, was nine-years-old when he and his family were emancipated in Franklin County, Missouri. He took the surname of his master, Richard Ludlow Jackson, Sr., within whose household he was born and lived intermittently until adulthood. Eventually Arthur met Ida May Anderson, a white woman, and they raised a family together. Their six children passed for white and Arthur's African American heritage...