Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1987. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Franklin College Building No. 5 is located along Main Street, or State Route 9, in New Athens, Ohio. The building houses the Franklin Museum which is dedicated to preserving the building and its primary function.”
Wikipedia article Franklin College Building No. 5, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 5 National Register listings in Harrison County · listed in 1987 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.87000687- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
8 since 2013
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Franklin College Building No. 5 between
2013 and 2020, burning about 14 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
5
Debris and open burning
1
Smoking
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 33 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Franklin College Building No. 5 between 1889 and
1971: 24 Animalia, 6 Plantae, 3 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by Andrew R. Moldenke, Fink, B., Hine, J. S. (James Stewart) & Walker, C. F. (Charles F.) and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Franklin College Building No. 5: 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Limestone, General, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
New Athens, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1998 and 2023: 8 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 tornado.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
The path of the tornado began just west of the town of New Athens |where the damage was mainly to soft and hardwood trees. Several |trees were uprooted or snapped. The tornado then continued over |the hill toward the town of New Athens. Several large trees were |uprooted and roof damage was observed on both sides of route 9/Main |Street in town.| |The most notable damage occurred in town just off of Culbertson |Drive and McFarland Road. Several trees were snapped low on the trunks |and additional large trees were uprooted. A home on Culbertson lost several |large sections of roof, with pieces found in a field 1.4 miles away. Pieces |of the roof were also found embedded in the ground just east of the home. It was in this area where|the tornado's maximum wind of 115 to 120 MPH was observed. On McFarland, more tree damage was observed. A small shed outside of a garage was demolished, with only the cement pad remaining and a power pole was snapped at the base. ||The path continued down the hill from McFarland along route 519 where |additional power poles were snapped and numerous trees were snapped/uprooted. |Damage was then observed above the next hill on the south side of route 519 southeast |of Ridge Creek Lodge, where beyond a field a grove of hardwoods were snapped or uprooted.|Video footage from this vantage point notes that the tornado did lift a couple of times but |further tree damage was noted on the eastern side of Ross Run before the tornado dissipated.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
2,060 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
brick building. and lintels. supporting a flat entablature with dentils. The hipped roof has a moderate roof, scrollwork, and a 12-light window. remodeled in 1950. The adjacent gymnasium, built in 1909, was designed in of rather simple design. Built into a slope, the pedimented front facade features two 8/8 double hung sash windows and a doorway on the exposed platted. The college was renamed Franklin College in 1826. A series of earlier buildings was demolished or destroyed by fire, the last in 1899. The Side entries are also double door with 12 light transoms and brick pilasters fifth and 1ast major bui1ding was completed in 1900,with a separate gymnasium The foundation is coursed sandstone with a stone watertable.
sills and 1intels.Paired 6/6 double hung windows are centered within the dormers with 9-light windows flank a central pedimented dormer with a curved There is also a single hip-roofed style similar to Building #5.It is a 1-1/2 story gable roof brick building residential area.The Franklin College Building#5is today the best The central front entry features double doors with a 12 light Areas of Significance-Check and justify below - prehistoric - sculpture .architecture -social/ - philosophy X 1900 - politics/government .transportation .other(specify) Statement of
Statement of significance
(in one paragraph) Criteria A and C of New Athens. It is also architecturally distinctive, and is today the most significant building, both historically and architecturally in the town of New Franklin College, although it had no formal church relationship, strongly Franklin College in 1826, and from that year to its closing in 1921, granted Franklin College educated more Presbyterian clergymen than any other college prosecutor at the trial of Lincoln's assassin, and was author of the first Hatfield was notable as a reform governor of West Virginia, and as a and was an active center of abolitionism.
Building #5 and the old gymnasium are the sole surviving buildings associated pedimented portico, multi-light windows, dormers, and hipped roof, Building #5 is a well executed example of the Georgian Revival style, representative of the skilled and capable designs by Yost and Packard, one of Ohio's most Frank Packard moved to Columbus and began working with Joseph Warren Yost who 1800-1899 1700-1799 1400-1499 commerce 1600-1699 Athens. economics communications conservation invention theater engineering industry Period archeology-historic humanitarian music military 8. Significance exploration/settlement 1500-1599 science education law agriculture Specific dates its symmetrical balance facade, central doorway with Corinthian capitals and See Continuation sheet.
literature prominent and prolific architectural firms at the turn of the century. The architectural firm of Yost and Packard was formed in 1892 shortly after and numerous other texts;his "companion" volume sold more copies than any were primary founders of four colleges),and eight became and details the classical tradition upon.which the college was founded." The Georgian revival Franklin College Building #5.is also the most was the first college in Ohio to graduate a black student Basfield), 1818,one year after the platting of New Athens; the name New Athens was - archeology-prehistoric _community planning .
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 87000687, 14 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
2 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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