Franklinville Historic District

Franklinville is a former mill town on the north bank of Deep River in central Randolph County, North Carolina. It began around a grist and saw mill operating by 1801 and grew after the Franklinsville Manufacturing Company mill opened about 1840 and the Island Ford mill followed in the late 1840s. Brick mills stand at each end of Main Street, and between them are one- and two-story frame houses on spacious lots, with a scattering of brick commercial buildings. The district keeps twenty-two ante bellum structures, including a wing of the Greek Revival Upper mill, one of very few of its kind in the state, and a group of ca. 1838 mill houses regarded as among the most intact in North Carolina. Other landmarks include the 1819 Johnson-Julian House, the brick Coffin-Makepeace House, and Hanks Lodge, the county's first Masonic lodge. Some buildings have been lost, but few intrusions have been introduced, so the town retains its historic layout and character.