White settlement began around 1800, and the county was formally organized in 1807 and named for
Benjamin Franklin. During the next several decades, the size of the county was reduced several times by reorganizations which created the neighboring counties of
Coffee County,
Moore County, and
Grundy County. One of the most notable early settlers was frontiersman
Davy Crockett, who came about 1812 but is not thought to have remained long. The
University of the South, founded by the Episcopal Church, was organized just before the
Civil War. It began full operations shortly after hostilities ceased. It encompasses a full university and theological seminary. The University of Tennessee Space Institute is also located in the county. The area became strongly
secessionist before the war. Franklin County formally threatened to
secede from Tennessee and join
Alabama if Tennessee did not leave the union, which the state did when forced to take sides by Abraham Lincoln. This contrasted sharply with the situation in not distant
Winston County, Alabama, which was largely pro-Union and provided more volunteers for the Union than the Confederacy. During 1863, the
Army of Tennessee retreated through the county, leaving it more or less under Union control for the rest of the war, although some guerrilla warfare still took place.
Isham G. Harris, the Confederate governor of Tennessee, was from Franklin County. After having his political rights restored after the war, he was chosen to represent the state in the
United States Senate. During the
temperance (anti-liquor) agitations of the late 19th century, residents discovered that by a quirk of state law, liquor could be sold only in
incorporated towns. As a result, all of the county's towns abolished their charters in order to prohibit the sale of alcohol. In the 20th century, Franklin County benefited from the flood control and power generation activities of the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), built by the President
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the
Great Depression. The TVA helped bring new industry to the area. It also created opportunities for water recreation by making new lakes, but at the same time also displaced many county residents from their soon to be submerged homes. The establishment of the federal
Arnold Engineering Development Center, which is partly within the county, helped spur economic growth and technical development. The
interstate highway system barely touched the county, but it did provide valuable access on
Interstate 24 to nearby
Chattanooga. Two notable figures who were born in the county early in the twentieth century were singer/entertainer
Dinah Shore and entrepreneur/philanthropist
John Templeton. He later became a British subject and was awarded a
knighthood. During the last decades of the 19th and the first of the 20th, Tennessee, like other southern states, passed laws and constitutional amendments establishing
Jim Crow:
racial segregation in public facilities, restrictions of voting for blacks, and similar measures. There were few violent disturbances in Franklin County compared to many other localities, but it was not until a decade after the historic
Brown v. Board of Education court decision that the county's schools were
desegregated in 1964 when
a lawsuit was won in Sewanee, Tennessee. Considerable industrial growth occurred in the county in the last decades of the 20th century, including the construction of a large automobile engine plant by the
Nissan corporation in
Decherd. An emphasis on tourism also developed, based on Civil War history and local scenic attractions such as the
dogwood forests, for which an annual festival is held. ==Geography==