Franklin

Franklin, city, seat of Venango county, northwest Pennsylvania, U.S., at the junction of French Creek and the Allegheny River, 70 miles (113 km) north of Pittsburgh. The site was early occupied by the Indian village of Venango and after 1750 by forts of the French (Fort-Machault), the British (Fort Venango), and the Americans (Fort Franklin). The U.S. fort, erected in 1787, was named for Benjamin Franklin; a town, laid out and incorporated as a borough in 1795, developed around it. Franklin was the site of Pennsylvania’s third oil gusher when in 1860 James Evans, a blacksmith, dug a well for water and found oil instead. Within two years Franklin, with nearby Oil City, emerged as the hub of an oil region producing more than 2,000,000 barrels annually. The boom lasted until about 1900, when the oil-production centre shifted to the American Southwest. Among those attracted by the boom was the magnate John D. Rockefeller; John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was a co-owner of one of the early Franklin wells.

The petroleum industry continues to dominate the region’s economy. Manufactures include mining equipment, steel products, plastics, and safety equipment. Inc. city, 1868. Pop. (2000) 7,212; (2010) 6,545.