Franklin House

Franklin House

This postcard is postmarked March 13, 1911, and bears a stamp of King Edward VII. The photograph was taken by F. Loftus who was a well known local photographer. The Franklin House, which was situated just across the street from the present day railway station served as a Port Stanley hotel from 1880 to 1918. A 1918 story in the St. Thomas Times Journal reports on the destruction of the hotel by fire, adding that the firefighters had difficulty in saving the bar on more than one occasion. The large dog in the foreground may have been a bit of a fixture on the Port Stanley street scene, since it appears in several postcards of this era.