Elected in 2015, Beth Mizell, a businesswoman from Franklinton, is the current District 12 state senator.

In 1826, representatives and citizens from both communities showed up in then-state-capital New Orleans to state their cases for keeping the name "Franklin."

In the early hours of January 11, 1935, a small group of white men forced their way into the Washington Parish jail in Franklinton, fatally shooting and beating Jerome Wilson, 30, an African-American man convicted of murder.

The decision cited that he was tried, convicted, and sentenced within ten days of his arrest in August in the slaying of Deputy Sheriff Delos C. Wood in a gunfight on the Wilson place.

[4] The lynch party took Wilson's body by car and dumped it along a rural road three miles (5 km) from town; then they dispersed.

Police officers said they thought Wilson was shot because his cries would have aroused parish authorities, who twice had thwarted attempts to lynch him.

The town's economy is based heavily on the parish agriculture, forestry, and some commercial industry.

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.