Throwback Thursday: August 31

News from around Johnson County as reported on Aug. 31 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 111 years.

On this day in 1992, one of the main stories on the front page of the Daily Journal was about how Franklin, Indiana, residents were preparing aid packages for Franklin, Louisiana, residents affected by Hurricane Andrew.

The Franklin-to-Franklin relief caravan was expected to roll out the evening of Aug. 31, 1993, bound for the bayou to help residents affected by the Category 5 hurricane.

“When Hoosier Franklinites were asked to donate to the relief effort: they did so generously,” the story recalled. Tons of canned food, paper products, bottled water and trash bags were dropped off across the city to be shipped by truck to thousands of survivors in the unofficial sister city: Franklin, Louisiana.

Thirty volunteers loaded the supplies into boxes and stacked the boxes onto skids on the east side of the Johnson County Courthouse. The boxes were then loaded by a forklift into a 48-foot semi-trailer loaned for the trip by Franklin Power Products.

The volunteers were a mix of Franklin residents, local firemen, police officers and members of Franklin College’s Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. When the truck and a convoy left later that night, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office was expected to escort them for the entire trip.

Franklin resident Roy Carver spent that morning watching the busy swarm of volunteers from the courthouse lawn.

“That’s wonderful isn’t it,” Carver said.

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Other memorable Johnson County stories from this day

1993

Franklin’s sewage plant was being blamed for a fish kill in Youngs Creek south of the city.

1983

A petition was circulating calling for the consolidation of Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson’s three elementary schools in Trafalgar.

1943

Johnson County residents reported seeing the Northern Lights.