VIDEO: 100 years ago the Town of Franklin was almost destroyed by a massive fire. On the evening of April 17, 1924, a fire broke out at the Pendleton Times that burned 37 buildings and left around 60 people homeless.
”The Pendleton Times they were printing the April 18th edition of the paper and the engine backfired and a spark flew into a container of gasoline. Well, that container was barrels, several barrels of gasoline and oil, so there was a pretty big explosion,” said Brenna Mitchell, a member of the Pendleton County Historical Society’s Board of Directors.
In 1924 most of the buildings in downtown Franklin were wooden so the fire spread very rapidly down Main Street. Back then all the town had for fire fighting was a single reel of hose and teams of people with water buckets. To make things worse the water system in town had already been a problem for about 20 years.