According to attorney Charles Congdon's book The Allegany Oxbow, Jimerson Town is a corruption of Jemison Town, as it was originally established by the heirs of Mary Jemison around the time the Allegany Reservation was laid out. Jimerson Town as it is known today was founded in the 1960s adjacent to the City of Salamanca as a resettlement area for some of the more than 600 Seneca displaced as a result of the Kinzua Dam construction. It was one of two communities built for this purpose, the other being Highbanks, south of Steamburg. Jimerson Town is due west of Salamanca. Old Route 17 runs through the community; since 2016, stop signs and speed limit signs are posted in both English and Seneca, with U.S. customary measurements used for both. It historically has been accessible only through Salamanca; the highway leading west of Jimerson Town was closed to traffic in the 1970s. Loop roads serve the various residences and infrastructure in the area. The Allegheny Reservoir terminates near the hamlet and runs adjacent to the community as the Allegheny River. Jimerson Town's proximity to Salamanca and its better infrastructure has given the area a more suburban environment compared to the mostly rural Steamburg area. It became the seat of government for the Allegany Reservation after Red House was evacuated in 1967. Since the mid-1980s, it has developed a volunteer fire department, day-care center, Montessori school, SNI buildings for tribal administration and athletics facilities. Through traffic was discontinued in the 1970s. This was in part because the Seneca Nation wanted to discourage outsiders ; other factors for converting Jimerson Town into a cul-de-sac included the reservoir's tendency to flood the roadway west of Jimerson Town, endangering traffic, and an effort to cut Red House off from the highway system and force its few remaining residents to move elsewhere so that that town's land could be claimed for expanding Route 17 and Allegany State Park. The Seneca also have several facilities in Salamanca: the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, the Allegany branch of the SNI library, a Seneca-owned bowling alley and two craft shops, and a restaurant featuring Seneca cuisine. The Seneca Allegany Casino opened just south of Jimerson Town in the early 2000s. Two churches operate in Jimerson Town: a Presbyterian missionary church and the nondenominational Red House Memorial Chapel, the latter of which is a church that moved from Red House to Jimerson Town in 1967, forcibly and against their will. In 2017, the Allegany Council House was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
