Skip to main content

Small Towns of Virginia Series - Franklin

Though larger than many of the other towns featured thus far in this series, Franklin is still one of the numerous small towns within the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Franklin is also one of 38 "independent cities" within Virginia.  Territory within an independent city is not part of any county.  Franklin, though it is within Southampton County, is its own jurisdiction.

The City of Franklin began in the 1830s thanks to the two popular steam modes of transportation of the era, railroads and boats.  Known then as Franklin Depot, the town grew thanks to its location on the Blackwater River as both railroads and steamboats had freight and passenger depots in the area.  A second major industry would develop in the area just prior to the Civil War.  In 1856, the first sawmill in the area opened.  The timber and pulp and paper business would be a mainstay in the Franklin economy well into the 21st century.

Downtown Franklin has seen its ups and downs.  Most of downtown was flooded as a result of Hurricane Floyd in September of 1999.  Throughout downtown there are numerous 'high water mark' placards showing how high the Blackwater River escaped its banks.  The flooding had a severe impact on downtown.  Downtown Franklin was flooded again - though not as severely - in 2006.

Franklin is one of Virginia's first Main Street communities.  This program assists communities to revitalize, preserve, and attract new businesses to their downtown areas.  Today, Franklin hosts a weekly farmers market from April - September, weekly music called "We Be Jammin" from May through September, and numerous festivals.  The Franklin Fall Festival is held annually during the first weekend in October.



Site Navigation:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po