Mr. Charles Lindsey is native Jacksonian and has lived in Jackson his entire life. He grew up in the William’s Subdivision on the North Side of the Virden Addition community. However, for the past few years he has been living in West Jackson.

Mr. Lindsey has been researching and documenting the history of many of the original streets in the City of Jackson and how they have changed over time. He has been doing this work for the past thirty years and his records indicate that some of the first streets in the city were West St., Pascagoula St., Mississippi St., and Pearl St. These streets were formed in 1822.

He has thick, six inch binders with laminated pages in which he keeps all his records. His binders detail old businesses, property maps, newspaper articles, pictures and maps of the City of Jackson.

He became interested in researching the origins of streets because of his interest in his family’s history. Mr. Lindsey and his brothers were born in his family home by a midwife and wanted to better understand his community and the evolution of his neighborhood. This led him to researching many of the streets in Downtown Jackson and West Jackson.

Mr. Lindsey gave a couple examples of his work, “For example North Dalton Street used to be called Magnolia Extension and South Dalton Street was known as Academy Street in 1903. The street names changed to Dalton in the 1920’s.”

His research led him to work for the City of Jackson through the Smith Roberson Museum. He has done extensive work on the Farish Street Historic District and the origins of the Jackson Public school system.

Not only is Mr. Lindsey a local historian, he also is a sculptural artist. He received his Arts Education degree from Jackson State University in 1975 and is well versed in wire sculpting and pottery work. He can spell out names in wire and has completed many wire sculptures. Some of his work is on display at the Smith Robertson Museum.

After graduating from JSU with his art degree, he later returned to the University to obtain his teachers license. In 1976, he became a substitute teacher and worked for JPS for the past thirty years. He currently is a teacher’s assistant at Jim Hill High School in the special education department.