06/15/2025
The June 21 meeting of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society will explore the natural and human history of Reelfoot Lake. Author Jim Johnson will draw upon reflections in his recent book, Reelfoot Lake: Oasis on the Mississippi. The free public event begins at 10:30 on Saturday, June 21, at the Obion County Public Library at 1221 E. Reelfoot Avenue in Union City, Tennessee. The event is co-sponsored by the Obion County Historical Society. This is a change in venue from earlier announcements.
Each year nearly a quarter million visitors come to Reelfoot Lake, also known as “The Earthquake Lake,” to enjoy its natural splendor. With its twenty-five thousand acres of shimmering water, haunting cypress swamps, and two-hundred-year-old lily marshes, the lake is rich in natural beauty and natural history. Yet, despite being one of the most unique lakes in the country—this natural body of water formed during the New Madrid earthquakes in the early nineteenth century—it is relatively understudied.
Biologist and environmentalist Jim W. Johnson grew up on the lake and experienced its natural and cultural history firsthand. As a wildlife biologist, he spent much of his career managing Reelfoot and its surrounding area. Reelfoot Lake: Oasis on the Mississippi is part personal remembrance, part guidebook, and part cautionary tale on river and wetland ecology, conservation, and land management, written by an author intimately knowledgeable about the lake and life on it. The book is available from the University of Tennessee Press.
In 1958, a group of historians met in Murray, Kentucky led by faculty from Murray State University and University of Tennessee-Martin and formed the Jackson Purchase Historical Society to promote interest, study, and preservation of the regional history of the territory encompassed in the Treaty of Tuscaloosa, known as the Jackson Purchase. The society now holds eleven meetings each year with a speaker on Jackson Purchase history and publishes an award-winning journal on local history. Members include a wide range of people who simply share a love of history and a love of the Jackson Purchase area.
The society recently refurbished its website and an array of information about the society and Jackson Purchase history is available at: jacksonpurchasehistoricalsociety.org.
Free electronic access to back issues of the Journal through 2023 is available through the Murray State University libraries at https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/jphs/.
Articles are welcome for future issues of the JPHS Journal and can be sent to the editor, Bill Mulligan at [email protected]. We also welcome inquiries about topics, books for review, or offers to review a book. Copies of the Journal are available from the Jackson Purchase Historical Society, PO Box 531, Murray, KY 42071. The cost is $15.90 including postage and sales tax. Anyone interested in Jackson Purchase history is welcome to join the JPHS.
