What Jacksonians now know as the historic Fondren district grew up around the former Mississippi Lunatic Asylum on the current site of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Located near the fork in the road where the city's northernmost boundaries reached Canton Road, the mental hospital provided many jobs, mostly menial ones, which drew large numbers of people to the area.

During the Civil War, most of the area's plantations, many of which had belonged to the Garland family, were destroyed. After the war, the state divided up the properties, and Isham Cade, a former slave, purchased a large parcel of this land. The area was officially known as the Isham Cade Survey, but many locals called it 'Sylum Heights. (State Street, from the Old Canton fork to the Pix/Capri was known as Cade's Alley.)

David Fondren, who was white, purchased some of Cade's land in 1893 and built a wood-frame general store called David Fondren's General Merchandise and Fancy Grocery. Located in the fork between Canton Road and Tougaloo Road (now State Street), the land fronted an Illinois Central railroad spur, which served the insane asylum and gave Fondren easy access to incoming supplies and outgoing timber.

The community established a post office inside Fondren's grocery in 1894. Feeling that 'Sylum Heights wasn't the best name, locals petitioned the U.S. Postal Service to establish the office as Fondren. The Fondren post office still exists today, only a block away from the original location.

In 1918, the state established the Mississippi State Hospital, commonly known as "Whitfield," after the community outside Jackson where it relocated. The old asylum was demolished, but the area lived on.

The Fondren family built several homes in the area on Tougaloo Road (now North State), and many businesses set up shop there as well. Drugstores, restaurants, filling stations, a neighborhood theater and other businesses joined the community.

Many individual buildings were joined together as the commercial district grew, and a number of permanent stores also grew out of existing housing. By 1925, housing development in Jackson had reached the southern edge of the old Fondren hospital grounds. Jackson annexed Fondren, the first inclusion of a developed community within the city limits.

Read more about Fondren at http://www.fondren.org.