Franklin, Indiana: Named for Benjamin

Franklin was founded in the spring of eighteen twenty-three by George King, who cleared land near the mouth of Hurricane Creek with three companions and laid out the county seat for the newly formed Johnson County. The town was named for Benjamin Franklin, though Johnson County itself honored John Johnson, a Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. By eighteen thirty-three, this small grid around a courthouse square already supported four mercantile stores, two taverns, two lawyers, and two doctors.

Franklin College, founded in eighteen thirty-four, added an educational dimension that has shaped the city's identity ever since. The college's old limestone buildings and the courthouse square still anchor a town that has been a stable county seat for more than two hundred years.