Rankin County was organized on February 4, 1828 and is named for Christopher Rankin, a former representative in Congress. The County was the 25th of Mississippi's 82 counties to organize, eleven years after Mississippi was admitted to the Union. Beginning in the 1860's a small influx of people migrated into the Pearl area. It was during these later years of the 1800's that Pearl had its origin as a rural farming area adjacent to the Pearl River and, until the middle 1900's, the Pearl area was primarily a farming community that was sparsely populated. But in the mid 1900's the influx of industry and people working in Jackson, in neighboring Hinds county, but residing in Pearl. Pearl's expansion, consequently originated as an extension of urban growth and development in the State's capital city. Subsequent reasons that contributed to the continued development of Pearl include the completion of levees and flood control works which protect the city form the Pearl River, close proximity of the Jackson International Airport, and direct access to Interstate 20 and Interstate 55.