CHAPTER 2City of Franklin, Ind.

I’ve been to Franklin, Ind., on multiple occasions, most of the time to visit a good friend, Garry Petersen, in the 1980s and ’90s before he and his wife moved to Greenwood, Ind., in the 2000s. I got the inspiration to do a shoot in Franklin’s downtown area — including the distinguished Johnson County Courthouse — from those visits.

In summer 2009, I drove to Franklin to make the pictures you see in this post. For reasons I’m not sure of today, I never did a blog post about that shoot even though I’d launched the blog about a half-year earlier. 

So I present pictures from that shoot here today in the second of this blog’s latest “Chapter” series, Catching Up ... on pre-blog years. Leading off the post is an exterior shot of Beeson Hall, a cultural and recreation center at adjacent to the Franklin College campus. The hall also has space to serve as a rental banquet facility. 

   

Above: a view of Jefferson Street, the city’s main east-west thoroughfare, looking west with the county courthouse clock tower in the background on the left.

Above and below: Sections of the businesses on E. Court Street across the street from the courthouse.

A detail shot of window on a downtown building (above), and a section of businesses (below) along the south side of Jefferson Street across from the courthouse.

Above and first four below: Detail shots of building facades of downtown businesses on Jefferson Street. 

Above and first two photos below: Back to the courthouse square businesses and a bench on the courthouse square.

Above: Pretty simple: A motorcycle in front of a guitar shop. Below, another cycle, this time in front of the local public library. 

Above: A detail shot of the limestone entrance to the library.

Above and last four photos below: I didn't want to wrap up this chapter without presenting a few images of the very distinguished Johnson County Courthouse in the heart of downtown Franklin. I made a special trip on Aug. 9, 2009, to take this photos. According to the courthouse square's entry in Wikipedia, the building features elements of Second Empire, Neo-Jacobean and Romanesque Revival style architecture. It has a low hipped metal roof topped by a central tower and with smaller corner towers topped with pyramidal roofs. It was designed by George W. Bunting, who also designed courthouses at Frankfort, Ind. (Clinton County) and Anderson, Ind. (Madison County). To view a full gallery of images of just the courthouse shoot, follow the link in this sentence. 

Coming tomorrow: Chapter 3, 2004 Memorial Day weekend tornado

Previously in Catching Up ... on pre-blog years:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Seek the Riot metal band