Franklin

Franklin, county, northeastern New York state, U.S., bordered by Quebec, Canada, to the north and mostly occupied by Adirondack Park (1892), one of the largest parks in the United States and the nation’s first forest preserve. The low hills in the north, forested in hardwoods, give way to the Adirondack Mountains in the south, heavily wooded with spruce and fir. The highest elevations, which are found in the southern part of the county, include Ampersand, Seward, and Seymour mountains. St. Regis Indian Reservation lies in the northwestern corner of the county. The principal streams are the St. Regis, Salmon, Trout, Chateaugay, and Saranac rivers. The southern mountains are drained by numerous waterways, including Tupper Lake, Raquette Pond, and the Saranac and St. Regis chains of lakes.

Iroquoian-speaking Mohawk Indians and Algonquian-speaking Abenaki Indians had villages in the region in the 18th century. Franklin county was created in 1808 following white settlement and named for Benjamin Franklin. The principal communities are Malone (the county seat), Tupper Lake, Moira, and Saranac Lake, where physician Edward Livingston Trudeau founded a sanatorium for the open-air treatment of tuberculosis (1884). Trudeau’s most famous patient was Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who resided there in 1887–88.

The economy relies on tourism, logging, and dairying. Area 1,632 square miles (4,226 square km). Pop. (2000) 51,134; (2010) 51,599.