As Franklin prospered, the downtown commercial business district expanded with new shops, offices, and service stations. To accommodate the influx of new residents, developers platted residential subdivisions on the town’s outskirts lining Franklin Road and Hillsboro Road. In the postwar era, the increase in population required the construction of many new schools for both Black and white residents. The Natchez High School for Black students on Natchez Street opened in 1949. In the mid-1950s, the Franklin High School for white students relocated to Hillsboro Road. Although the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling made segregation of schools unconstitutional, desegregation of public schools in the South was a slow process. Desegregation of schools in Franklin took place from 1961–1968. In 1953, the Franklin Housing Authority (FHA) was established in response to community pressures to deal with the need for affordable low-income housing in Franklin. That year, the FHA designated the Natchez Street neighborhood west of Columbia Avenue between Ninth Avenue and Fowlkes Street to be demolished for the first wave of public housing. Initially, when Natchez Street residents learned of the plan, the neighborhood banded together to resist demolition of the entire area. City plans for urban renewal continued, and many long-term residents voiced continued protest. The neighborhood’s first public housing projects were built on twenty acres that had previously contained company housing for the Beasley Lumber Mill between Granbury, Strahl, and Carter Streets. The radical changes that the Natchez Street district experienced after 1958 during the height of urban renewal is an accurate reflection of the housing and urban planning policies that profoundly influenced cities and towns throughout the country. The Natchez Street area also experienced far-reaching changes during the 1950s and 1960s resulting from urban renewal and subsequent public housing projects built during that twenty-year period. The neighborhood is currently bordered on three sides by public housing projects built beginning in 1958 through the early 1970s that are still in use. Behind the neighborhood, Columbia Avenue, once the recognized street for upper-class African American homes, was developed in the 1960s and presently consists of a supermarket, discount stores, and fastfood chain restaurants. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the FHA continued to construct segregated public-housing on multiple sites throughout the oldest parts of Franklin. 1942 1953 1949 Natchez High School for Black Students opened on Natchez Street in 1949. The Old, Old Jail The Franklin Housing Authority (FHA) was established in 1953, responding to the need for affordable housing. Public housing was constructed along Natchez Street. Mid-20th Century Residential off Franklin Road 53
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