[1] Established as a proslavery stronghold, the town played a key role in the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict that troubled the territory in the 1850s.

When Kansas was officially opened up to western settlement after the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Franklin found itself inundated with settlers, most—if not all—of whom were from the nation's south.

The free staters entered town after dark to search for "Old Sacramento," a cannon taken during a southern raid on Lawrence.

The Lawrence attackers finally made progress when they set a wagon loaded with hay alight and moved it to the front door of the fort.

In the late 1850s and early 1860s, the town's political leanings changed; according to Daniel Fitzgerald, "[By 1861] Franklin residents who were adamant in their proslavery sentiments kept it to themselves, for the spirit of the community was decidedly antislavery.

[7] On August 21, 1863, William C. Quantrill and about 400 guerrillas and Confederate Army recruits passed through Franklin on their way to raid Lawrence.

One resident, Dr. R. L. Williams (who happened to have moved into the old fort in 1857), said he thought Quantrill's men were Union soldiers and no one took much notice of them, as they quickly passed through.

[12] The settlement's post office officially closed in 1867, and around this time a number of imposing structures, such as a hotel and a sawmill, were carted off elsewhere.

[7] The old stone fort (which served as Dr. Williams residence for a number of years) remained for a long while the most prominent remnant of the settlement.

[13][14] By 1900, those living in the area had to exert "considerable labor" to fill up derelict wells and exposed cellar pits from the houses that had once stood on the site.