Franklin
Franklin, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This community was established in 1872 and named Morgan for a railroad official. Located on the right-of-way of the International Railway Company, the town contained a depot and three stores in its first year. By 1879, the town had 200 residents and voters transferred the county seat from Calvert to Morgan. The community applied for a post office in 1880. Another Texas post office was named Morgan, so the town name was changed to Franklin after the name of the original county seat. A stone courthouse, designed by R. E. Ruffini, was completed in 1882. The town's first newspaper, the Franklin Weekly, was published by J. A. Keigewin. By 1885, Franklin had three hotels, three churches, and two gristmills. Mineral springs attracted visitors to the area for many years. A cemetery was formally established in 1880 at a site where several graves were already in existence. The community's first school building, a frame structure, burned in 1894 and another was erected. The First National Bank of Franklin was chartered in 1905; the First State Bank was established in 1913. A Carnegie Library was built and equipped with an auditorium. By the 1970s Franklin, an incorporated community, had a mayor-council form of city government. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1872 along the International Railway right-of-way, this town was first called Morgan for a railroad official and quickly gained a depot and stores. By 1879 it had drawn the county seat away from Calvert, and when its post-office name conflicted with another Morgan, it was renamed Franklin. A stone courthouse rose in 1882, and hotels, churches, banks, mineral springs, and a Carnegie library soon made it a thriving county town.
Why it matters
Franklin's founding shows how the railroad conjured entire towns—and shifted county seats—across the post-Civil War Texas landscape.
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Themes & tags
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Robertson County Courthouse
Franklin, TX
This white limestone courthouse, raised in 1882 for $30,000, was the fourth to serve Robertson County — and it stood in a town that owed both its location and its name to the railroad. When the county seat moved to the International & Great Northern line in 1879, the new town of Morgan had to be renamed Franklin to avoid duplicating an existing Texas post office. Architect F. E. Ruffini drew the plans that same era.
Franklin Carnegie Library
Franklin, TX
Franklin kept a 1,000-volume library in its City Hall before Mayor R. M. Cole applied to the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1913 for a purpose-built home. A $7,500 grant funded this brick building with classical details and a pressed-metal tile roof, completed in 1914 by an architect named Patterson. Though it served as a library only through 1918, it hosted school classes and public activities into 1984.