Briefly How God Made Fondren, As Best I Understand The Situation

First there were Indians.

Out of the Indian's land came the state of Mississippi, and Jackson was made in the middle of the state in 1821.

Mostly everything north of Jackson was farmland, and the Garland family owned about five thousand acres of farmland in the aforesaid north-of-Jackson.

In this property there was a road that went North to the next big town and was named after it: Canton Road. Where it forked with Tougaloo Plantation Road (now State Street) was where a town started.

So this town was on high ground, near the Pearl river, and directly adjacent to the state lunatic asylum. This state hospital provided a lot of jobs, although many of them were menial.

A black community formed around these jobs.

After the Civil War, the Garland's property (like other plantations and property) was destroyed and divided. A black man named Isham Cade bough a lot of the land at the fork, subdivided the land and surveyed it.

Because of the insane asylum this area was known ‘Sylum Heights for years, but it's legal name was the Isham Cade Survey (or subdivision).

The strip of State Street from the the fork with Old Canton to the PIX theater is still sometimes called Cade's Alley.

In 1893 David Fondren bought some of Cade's property and put up a general store.

A post office was established the next year in 1894. Today, the Fondren Post Office is less that a block away from the first one.

Some of the residents decided ‘Sylum Heights was not a desirable name for a community, and they petitioned the US Post Office to establish the station as Fondren.

Never exceeding a population of a few hundred people, Fondren was able to be largely self sufficient.

In 1925 the city of Jackson annexed Fondren when development in Jackson pushed housing to the south. Soon after that the residential area northeast of Cade's Alley became very fancy.

Fondren developed a lot more after that too but I am le tired and that's the basics.