It Was Fun to Stay at the (old) YMCA!

Above the tennis courts in the foreground and the Franklin YMCA in the background. The Y building, destroyed by fire several years ago, stood on Emmons Street opposite the old Dean Science building. This is a postcard before 1920.

Everyone in Franklin and vicinity knows the familiar, glistening, and modern YMCA atop Forge Hill -- a place for adult fitness and education and destination for summer campers and year round swimmers.

But long-before the 1988 Forge Park Y came into existence, the Y was a vital part of the Franklin Community that actually got its start in 1901, almost 50 years after the first YMCA in America got its start in Boston.

By 1909, the Franklin  Y was in the midst of a capital campaign and only two years later, in 1911, actually opened its new building, pictured above. 

Franklin native and acclaimed presenter, Joe Landry, will be delivering a talk and slide show called "The YMCA in Franklin: The Early Years" at the Franklin Historical Museum on Nov. 15, (a Saturday, rather than the museum's more typical Sunday presentation) at approximately 1 pm.

Joe will delve into the building (which was easy to get lost in!), the lore, the personalities and the times in which this older style Y -- aimed at the needs of young men -- was a vital community resource.