Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Franklin, MO

Franklin is a small city in Howard County, Missouri, founded in 1816 and named for Founding Father Benjamin Franklin; it was the first settlement in Howard County and became the county seat in 1817.

Franklin was the original eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail: in 1821 William Becknell, now known as the 'Father of the Santa Fe Trail,' organized his first trading expedition from Franklin, setting out on September 1, 1821, and crossing the Missouri River near Arrow Rock.

In 1819 Franklin became home to the Missouri Intelligencer and Boonslick Advertiser, the first newspaper printed west of the Mississippi River.

Franklin grew so fast that by about 1823 it held an estimated 1,500 people, making it the second-largest town in Missouri Territory after St. Louis, with hundreds of buildings, stores, taverns, academies, and a federal land office.

Frontiersman Kit Carson was raised in Franklin after migrating there as a boy from Kentucky, and as a teenager he was apprenticed to a saddlemaker in town before running away to join the Santa Fe trade.

The town grew up at the end of Boone's Lick Road, the trail settlers used to reach the salt springs near the farm of William Becknell, a few miles northwest of Franklin.

Franklin's prosperity was cut short by the Missouri River: devastating floods in 1826 through 1828 washed away the sandy townsite, and residents abandoned it to found New Franklin on higher ground in 1828.

Howard County's seat had already moved from Franklin to Fayette in 1823, before the floods finished the old town off.

Today's Franklin is only a remnant of the boomtown — the 2020 census counted 70 residents, down from 95 in 2010, when the city had 42 households.

Franklin is part of the Columbia, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area, covers about 0.23 square miles along the Missouri River, and its Cedar Grove property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.