The Town of Franklinville advocates both traditional and sustainable planning to preserve and enhance the community with environmentally sound, historically sensitive growth. 

• Avoid large-lot sprawl and totally automobile dependent development.
• Preserve village center.
• Sustainable future growth; enhance walking, biking, public transport.
• Mixed use communities for sustainable future growth - so people can work, shop, visit, pray and attend school in one area.
• Neighborhoods connected by grid of interconnected streets and greenways to encourage walking and biking.
• Preserve open space, rural views, wildlife habitats, rock outcroppings and watersheds in pristine form.
• Preserve a diversity of people by providing for mix of housing types in each neighborhood.
• Rely on good principles of design that fit harmoniously into surroundings rather than specific rules in traditional development ordinances.

Franklinville Mission Statement and Goals

"Our mission is to create a friendly, thriving environment for Franklinville

by preserving and enhancing its distinctive characteristics while improving its

appearance, infrastructure, and economy."

• To build mixed-use neighborhoods with a variety of housing types and small businesses.
• To preserve the character of the rural landscape and protect the quality of water and natural resources by combining traditional agricultural uses with open space conservation and recreation.
• Town will treat the natural bodies of water that are situated on any tract of land in our community as irreplaceable assets which should be protected but made accessible to all citizens.
• Realizing a future community with "less dependence on the automobile" will mean providing convenient and attractive alternatives including transit, walking and bicycling. Locating higher density developments at activity centers and along transit corridors, creating attractive commercial developments close to neighborhoods, and investing in sidewalks, greenways and bicycle trails that connect neighborhoods to shopping and services will also be needed.

Geography and Statistics of Franklinville and the Surrounding Area

The Town of Franklinville, in the county of Randolph, operates under a Mayor-Council form of government and was incorporated by the state in 1846. Franklinville is approximately 800 acres with a population of 1,000 people. The NC Demographer's Office projects a 38.2% growth rate for Randolph County over the next twenty years.

In 1992 the U.S. unemployment rate was 7.4%; Randolph County's was 4.3%; and Franklinville's was 2.8%. Only 5.7% of the Franklinville population had incomes below the poverty level. 83% of homes are occupied by their owners.

Only 11.7% of the total Franklinville budget is derived from local property taxes. Of all county municipalities, only Randleman relies less on local property taxes. A quarter of budget revenue is income from water and sewer customers, and is dedicated solely to utility system use. The balance of revenues comes from State distributed monies such as gasoline tax and retail sales tax.

Franklinville was founded by Quakers in the 1830's as a stand against slavery - the founder of the Town (Elisha Coffin) was active on the underground railroad and started the textile mill as an alternative form of economic development to investment in slave ownership.

The mill corporation in the 1840's built the village of Franklinville along the Deep River and two creeks. They used power from the river to drive the looms. On the lowest level, just above the floodplain of the river, were the mills that provided the economic backbone of the village. On a level about five feet above the mill were the buildings of the company store and homes of the millers. Public institutions such as the school, meeting house, cemetery and town hall were located near the top of the hill, with stores fronting the road leading north toward Greensboro. The community was then perched on the terraced slopes of the hill embraced by these watercourses. The first houses built by the mill are now known as the 'Cotton Row' houses and some remain today on West Main Street.

For over 100 years, walking was the predominant method of transportation to get to work, school, stores, church and neighbors' homes. There was a network of footpaths all over town that were sometimes publicly graded and maintained with gravel and fill dirt in the same manner as were public streets.

Bridges have been an absolute requirement of the Franklinville community since its beginning. Covered bridges cross Deep River at Cedar Falls and Franklinville and other small bridges, both covered and open, are on Sandy Creek, Bush Creek, and Walnut Creek.

The Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley Railway was built into Town in 1884 for passengers and freight transportation to Ramseur, Sanford and Greensboro. Special excursions would run to the beaches and the mountains in the summer. This continued until 1970 when the depot was demolished.

For more information on the Town of Franklinville, please see their website: www.franklinville-nc.gov

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