Cattle and other livestock were regularly driven down the street to the barn where they were sometimes slaughtered. The results of the slaughtering process possibly inspired the name. That street was about where Emily Court is now. In 1903, Franklin expanded its formal boundaries to include these new neighborhoods. As Franklin’s Black community prospered, the county experienced racial unrest as white mobs attacked and murdered Black people. From 1884 to 1924, five black people were lynched in Williamson County, including Amos Miller, a 23-year-old black man who was taken from the courtroom in Franklin during his 1888 trial as a suspect in a sexual assault case. The white mob hung Miller from a balcony of the Williamson County Courthouse. In 1899, the United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated and erected the Confederate Monument, with a marble statue portraying a Confederate soldier atop a column, on the courthouse square to commemorate the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Franklin. In 1909, an interurban streetcar railway connecting Franklin with Nashville began service along Franklin Turnpike. The 19-mile electric rail line ran from Franklin’s town square to the terminus in Nashville at Bransford Avenue and Eighth Avenue South and passed through modern-day Bicentennial Park and Harlinsdale Farm. The Franklin Interurban operated until 1942. The passenger cars were segregated with separate seating areas for Black people. In the late 1910s, the State of Tennessee focused its transportation improvements on building new highways and upgrading older turnpikes. This effort included releasing tolls on the Columbia and Franklin turnpikes, which together were designated State Route 6 (SR-6) and U.S. Highway 31 (US31). The road follows Main Street through downtown, Franklin Road to the north, and Columbia Pike to the south. In the 1920s, US-31/ SR-6 became part of the Andrew Jackson Highway, a marked interstate highway connecting Chicago and New Orleans that passed through Franklin. The Jackson Highway was used by tourists—both Black and white—and featured roadside businesses such as service stations, tourist homes, restaurants, nightclubs, motels, and drugstores. These routes increased tourism at Franklin’s Civil War heritage sites. In 1925, the United States Postal Service constructed and opened a Postal Office on Main Street at a key intersection known as 5 Points. 1899 1909 Natchez street, where many African American families lived, was referred to as “Baptist Neck” and was the home of A.N.C Williams. These years were marked by significant racial unrest, with white mobs violently attacking and murdering Black people in Franklin. Confederate Monument, Daughters of the Confederacy The interurban streetcar railway began service in 1909, connecting Franklin and Nashville (Source: Williamson Source) 1884 to 1924 51
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