Its prime location at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River made the Northwestern PA town of Franklin a perfect trading post in the 1740s. In the years following the French and Indian War, Franklin saw an economic boom with Colonel Edwin Drake’s drilling of the country’s first successful oil well in the nearby town of Titusville. Franklin’s charming Victorian architecture is a testament to the town’s rich history, but today the county seat of Venango County is known for the Barrow-Civic Theatre, whose first stage was a cement slab used by an oil refinery; DeBence Antique Music World, which houses a collection of more than 100 antique mechanical musical instruments from the mid-1800s to the 1940s, St. John’s Episcopal Church, boasting a collection of 30 Tiffany windows, including one of the largest rose windows made of Favrile glass ever created by Tiffany studios; and Applefest, a three-day autumn and craft extravaganza that will delight you to the core. Check out the small-town charm in this video of Franklin, whose downtown thoroughfare was named by the American Planning Association's as one of the 10 great streets in America.
