Jackson Center

How Jackson Center began

Jackson Center was platted in 1835 in Jackson Township, Shelby County, and grew slowly through the nineteenth century as a farm-country crossroads with post-office service beginning in 1858. Its modern identity was set in 1952, when Airstream founder Wally Byam, looking for a second factory site to serve the East Coast market from a location near the trailer-industry hub of Elkhart, Indiana, was directed by a Sidney attorney to an overgrown former bazooka-shell factory building in the village. Airstream has manufactured its travel trailers and motorhomes in Jackson Center ever since, beginning production in a new 750,000-square-foot plant in January 2020 and reopening daily public factory tours in the summer of 2022, making the village of roughly 1,400 people the sole U.S. manufacturing home of the Airstream brand.

Settled 1831-1833 (James McCormick 1831, Andrew Nogle 1833), platted 1835 (plat of twenty-four lots recorded May 4).

Where the name comes from

The origin of the name Jackson Center is not documented beyond its association with Jackson Township, in which it lies; no namesake such as Andrew Jackson is recorded for the village.

Before the town

The 1913 county history notes that the 640-acre McPherson section lying wholly within Jackson Township was a special grant to James McPherson under the Treaty of St. Marys of 1818, one of the individual grants by which that treaty compensated people tied to the Indians. No Native village or earthwork specific to Jackson Center is recorded. Shawnee, Miami and Wyandot (Huron) peoples were present across Shelby County before 1800.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

• McPherson grant (treaty) — 640 acres wholly within Jackson Township, near Jackson Center, 1818 (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1831 — James McCormick, traveling from Greene County, enters land in section 34 of what is now Jackson Township; there are no other recorded land transactions until Andrew Nogle of Fairfield County settles in section 30 in 1833, the year the township is organized.
2. 1835 — Jackson Center is platted.
3. after 1835 — E. P. Stout is the first merchant and first postmaster of Jackson Center, on a plat of twenty-four lots in sections 10 and 15 recorded May 4, 1835; the 1913 history gives no date for his appointment.
4. 1839 — Daniel Davis builds the first mill in Jackson Township, a horse mill; ten years later Joel Babcock builds a steam sawmill at Jackson Center that burns in 1868, is rebuilt the next year and is bought in 1875 by R. F. Buirley.
5. 1840 — The Jackson Center Seventh Day Baptist church is organized March 22 at the house of Solomon Sayrs by Elder James Bailey with about thirty members; a hewn-log church is built west of town in 1842 and Elder Simeon Babcock is minister for over twenty years.
6. 1858 — Postal service begins in the village.
7. 1859 — The old frame Seventh Day Baptist church, a quarter mile west of town, is dedicated in September; in 1881-82 the society builds a 48-by-30-foot frame church in Jackson Center at a cost of about $2,000.
8. 1882 — The Dearbaugh handle factory is built at Jackson Center in the summer, beside the Dearbaugh sawmill.
9. 1895 — The Farmers and Merchants Bank of Jackson Center is organized June 19 with Shelby Baughman as president; it is reorganized as the First National Bank of Jackson Center on February 1, 1907, with capital of $10,000, later $33,000.
10. 1896 — The Jackson Center News is founded, its first number appearing July 24 under editor C. N. Shook on a Washington hand press, and it is enlarged to six columns in 1907.
11. 1900 — The census counts 644 residents.
12. 1950 — The village's population stands at 698 residents.
13. 1952 — Airstream founder Wally Byam and his associate Andy, seeking a second factory site near the East Coast market and the Elkhart, Indiana trailer-industry hub, are directed by a Sidney chamber-of-commerce contact and attorney E.J. Garmhausen to an overgrown former wartime bazooka-shell factory building in Jackson Center, and Airstream opens its second plant there.
14. 1960 — The census counts 980 residents, up from 698 in 1950; the village reaches 1,310 in 1980.
15. 2020 — In January 2020 Airstream begins production in its new 750,000-square-foot travel-trailer production facility in Jackson Center.
16. 2020 — The census counts 1,441 residents.
17. 2022 — Airstream reopens daily public tours of its Jackson Center factory, now in the new plant, early in the summer.

Stories

How a wartime bazooka factory became the home of Airstream

In 1952, Airstream founder Wally Byam had run his travel-trailer company out of a single factory in Culver City, California since 1931, but by the early 1950s he had the resources to open a second plant and wanted it near the East Coast market and the established trailer-industry cluster around Elkhart, Indiana. He and an associate, Andy, drove through Ohio, stopped in Dayton to visit relatives, then continued north and pulled into Sidney for gas. There, Andy asked at the Chamber of Commerce about available buildings and was referred to a local attorney, E.J. Garmhausen, who pointed them toward a vacant, overgrown building in the small village of Jackson Center -- a structure that had been used during World War II to manufacture bazooka shells. Airstream took the building. Jackson Center, platted in 1835, is today home to the only Airstream production plant in the country; in January 2020 production began in a new 750,000-square-foot facility, and daily public factory tours reopened there in the summer of 2022.

Seventh Day Baptists at the crossroads

The oldest congregation at Jackson Center was a Seventh Day Baptist church organized on March 22, 1840, at the house of Solomon Sayrs, by Elder James Bailey with Elders Simeon Babcock and S. A. Davis. It began with about thirty members, among them Luther L. Davis, Dudley Hughes, Davis Loofborough, Calvin Davis, James M. Davis, Uriah Davis, John W. Knight and Simeon Babcock, and for two years it met in members' houses, using the Sayrs house for quarterly meetings. In 1842 the society built a hewn-log church west of Jackson Center, with Maxson Babcock and Jacob Maxson as deacons and Simeon Babcock as minister for more than twenty years. The old frame church that replaced it a quarter mile west of town was dedicated in September 1859, and in May 1881 the society began a frame church inside the village, completed for about $2,000 and dedicated in the summer of 1882. Joel Babcock's steam sawmill, the first in the village, and the Babcock names in the church lists suggest how much the village owed to that congregation.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · airstream.com · airstream.com · wosu.org · archive.org

Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here

• Jackson Center Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Power plants (1)

Public schools (2)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (3)

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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