Franklinville Town

Randolph County, North Carolina

   

Franklinville Town Hall is located at 163 West Main Street, Franklinville, NC 27248.
Phone: 336‑824‑2604.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

The Town of Franklinville began as the site of an early grist and saw mill along the Deep River. The mill dates from ca. 1801 and served as a gathering place for local farmers. By the early 1800s the settlement around the mill had been named Coffin Mills for Elisha Coffin who operated the mills. The name was later changed to Franklinsville and finally Franklinville. It came to encompass the village of Island Ford which was located a short distance downstream. The two towns were joined in 1876 when mills were consolidated under the leadership of Hugh Parks, whose family owned a majority interest in the mills.

The town consists primarily of one to two story frame dwellings with a scattering of one to two story brick commercial buildings. The heart of the present town is about 3 blocks wide and 2 deep from the river, rising up a ridge. At each end of Main Street (Route 22) is a brick textile complex. The Franklinsville Mill consists of an 1840 core, 1851 rebuilding and additions, and late 19th and early 20th century additions. The Randolph Manufacturing Company mill consists of an 1895 U-shaped brick core that was built to replace the 1848 frame mill. It was called the Island Ford Mill after the ford on Deep River. Island Ford was its own village, originally separated from Franklinville by Mulberry (now Academy) Street.

  1. Virginia Oswald and L. M. Whatley, Franklinville Historic District, Randolph County, North Carolina, nomination document, 1984, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

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