School Name History

Location

33165 King Road, Abbotsford, BC 

Opened

1961

The School

Jackson Elementary School was built in 1961 to alleviate the overcrowding at South Poplar Elementary. It was originally a two-room school located on King Road near Jackson Street.  In 1992, it was almost completely rebuilt.  The school was entirely emptied and what was dubbed a "portable city" was set up on the property for the school to function.  The renovation was designed for longevity and low maintenance.  Brick work on the exterior virtually eliminated repair and painting costs in the years ahead, and sloped metal roofs eliminated costly roof repairs. It became a K-5 school when the district introduced middle schools in the early 2000s and grades 6 and 7 were moved from elementary schools to middle schools.

Origin of the Name

Jackson Elementary is named for its location near Jackson Street. The street is named after Mark Jackson, a pioneer who operated a dairy farm in the area.  Mark Jackson was born in England in 1891, emigrating to Canada when he was only seventeen years old. He moved to Abbotsford in 1910 and became a logger earning $2.50 a day clearing land for roadways and farms. Abbotsford was mostly made up of forests and bush, so there was lots of work. He was one of Abbotsford’s pioneers.

In 1918, at age twenty-six, he served in World War I with the First Canadian Reserve Battalion in England. He returned to Canada in June of 1919 and married Catherine Robertson a month later.

He bought forty acres of land, cleared five acres, and developed a dairy farm. There, he and Catherine raised four children: Mary, Bill, Freda and Mark Jr.  Mark Jackson died on October 17, 1968, at the age of seventy-seven. His son, Mark Jr., moved back into the family home and was still living there in 1992.