It opened in 1963 in Dow Academy and the site of the Forest Hills Hotel on Agassiz Road, and closed in 1978, after years of declining enrollment and increasing financial difficulties.

The school first gained national attention in 1968 when William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, vilified the students for behavior that included unmarried persons of the opposite sex sleeping together.

[5] In 1976, the college appeared on a segment of ABC Evening News with president Ira Goldenberg, economics professor George Wheeler and two students discussing the experiences and responsibility learned at Franconia.

[15] The main hotel building was torn down in 1985, and the former college president's house, known as "The Lodge" when built in 1892, opened as a bed and breakfast called The Inn At Forest Hills in 1993.

[16][17] The nine founding staff members included Richard R. Ruopp, later president of the college, Robert Greenway, Peter Elbow, and Nicholas Howe.

[1] Notable faculty included Eliot Coleman, who taught Spanish, and Nancy L. Walker, a widely published and award-winning creative nonfictionist.

Other notable faculty included Mike Wallace, Peter Linebaugh, and Jerome Corsi in history, David Kettler in political science, and Michael Dorris in anthropology.

[18] Part of Franconia College's oeuvre (body of work) was alternative education classes that were the object of study in developing new ways to teach that gave more individualized instruction and more varied opportunities.

One of the students reports that she was able to use the skills and experience learned in the auto mechanics class to hire on as a Journeyman marine machinist repairing diesel engines onboard Navy ships in Alameda, California.

[citation needed] In 1975, that same year, the college was denied a US$560,000 federal grant to support an experimental cooperative project with a local school district that met with opposition by both Governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr. and the Manchester Union Leader.