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Indiana Bicentennial Celebration 2016
Franklin County
Q&A with County Coordinators Pam Beneker and Mikel Beck and Torch Relay Coordinators Melody Gault and Dave Cook
What do you consider the key accomplishment(s) of your county’s Bicentennial celebration?
- The Torch Relay wsa very successful.
What Legacy Project do you most like to tell people about, and why?
- I was involved in the writing of our church's 200-year birthday, also in 2016. It was a legacy project. It isn't totally finished yet.
Describe a highlight or most memorable moment related to your county's Bicentennial celebration.
- We have had four governors from Brookville. In the Torch Relay those governors were depicted by four fourth graders.
How/where are you preserving information and artifacts related to your county's celebration?
- Our committee will be meeting soon to decide.
Total number of volunteers who participated.
- Approximately 35.
Franklin County Legacy Projects
- A Judicial History of the Franklin County Circuit Court
- Antique Woven Coverlets from the Mid 1800's
- Batesville's 43rd Annual Music and Arts Festival
- Batesville Celebrating Indiana’s 200th
- Brookville Canoe Fest
- Brookville United Methodist Church 200th Anniversary
- Franklin County’s Territorial Court Case Files
- Franklin County Quilt Show
- Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Dinner Dance
- Indiana Humanities ALL-IN Block Party: ALL IN THE CANAL!
- Little Lew’s Star: How Lew Wallace was inspired to write Ben Hur: A Tale of the Crist
- Murder on the Whitewater Canal: An Interactive History Game
- The Schools of Franklin County, Indiana and the Teachers of Franklin County, Indiana 1800s - 1972
- Valley House Rebirth
- "We Are Indiana" A Film Discovering "Who" Are Hoosiers
Franklin County Facts
Franklin County was named for Benjamin Franklin.
About the courthouse: Elmer Dunlap was the architect, and the building was completed in 1912.
You can take a ride on a horse-drawn canal boat in historic Metamora. The Ben Franklin III, launched in 1989, was designed and constructed in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Designed as a freighter, the vessel is 75 feet long and has a beam (width) of 12 feet. Constructed of wood and fiberglass, it holds approximately 75 passengers and crew. May to October is canal boat season.
Also, tour the Grist Mill; learn how to make corn meal with the use of water power. Shops vary from antiques to fine European lace, from candles to fine hand-made cherry furniture at the Sampler. Grist Mill admission is free.
Some of the early Franklin County settlers were Primitive Baptists. Elder William Tyner and others organized the Little Cedar Grove Baptist Church, the first church in the Whitewater Valley. The members built a log church as early as 1805, about two or three miles southeast of Brookville, Indiana.
In 1812 they built a large brick church, with balcony and rifle ports. They held the first meeting in it on August 1, 1812. It is the oldest church building standing on its original site in Indiana. It is open as a historic site.
County Seat: Brookville
Year Organized: 1810
Square Miles: 384.43
