Brandon, Mississippi

Rankin County was carved out of Hinds County in February of eighteen twenty-eight and named for Christopher Rankin, a Mississippi congressman. The county seat needed a name, and it was named for the governor of the day, Gerard Chittocque Brandon. Brandon had the distinction of being the first native-born governor of Mississippi, having been born in the state when it was still a territory. The town was incorporated on December nineteenth, eighteen thirty-one, while he was in office.

For nearly two centuries Brandon has been Rankin County's administrative heart, a compact seat of government east of Jackson across the Pearl River. It is the kind of county seat whose name most people in the region know well, though few stop to consider that it carries the name of a governor who happened to be in office when the town was incorporated.