FRANKFORT, a city and the county-seat of Clinton county, Indiana, U.S.A., 40 m. N.W. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890) 5919; (1900) 7100 (144 foreign-born); (1910) 8634. Frankfort is served by the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville, the Lake Erie & Western, the Vandalia, and the Toledo, St Louis & Western railways, and by the Indianapolis & North-Western Traction Interurban railway (electric). The city is a division point on the Toledo, St Louis & Western railway, which has large shops here. Frankfort is a trade centre for an agricultural and lumbering region; among its manufactures are handles, agricultural implements and foundry products. The first settlement in the neighbourhood was made in 1826; in 1830 the town was founded, and in 1875 it was chartered as a city. The city limits were considerably extended immediately after 1900.
FRANKFORT, the capital city of Kentucky, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Franklin county, on the Kentucky river, about 55 m. E. of Louisville. Pop. (1890) 7892; (1900) 9487, of whom 3316 were negroes; (1910 census) 10,465. The city is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Frankfort & Cincinnati railways, by the Central Kentucky Traction Co. (electric), and by steamboat lines to Cincinnati, Louisville and other river ports. It is built among picturesque hills on both sides of the river, and is in the midst of the famous Kentucky “blue grass region” and of a rich lumber-producing region. The most prominent building is the Capitol, about 400 ft. long and 185 ft. wide, built of granite and white limestone in the Italian Renaissance style, with 70 large Ionic columns, and a dome 205 ft. above the terrace line, supported by 24 other columns. The Capitol was built in 1905-1907 at a cost of more than $2,000,000; in it are housed the state library and the library of the Kentucky State Historical Society. At Frankfort, also, are the state arsenal, the state penitentiary and the state home for feeble-minded children, and just outside the city limits is the state coloured normal school. The old capitol (first occupied in 1829) is still standing. In Franklin cemetery rest the remains of Daniel Boone and of Theodore O’Hara (1820-1867), a lawyer, soldier, journalist and poet, who served in the U.S. army in 1846-1848 during the Mexican War, took part in filibustering expeditions to Cuba, served in the Confederate army, and is best known as the author of “The Bivouac of the Dead,” a poem written for the burial in Frankfort of some soldiers who had lost their lives at Buena Vista. Here also are the graves of Richard M. Johnson, vice-president of the United States in 1837-1841, and the sculptor Joel T. Hart (1810-1877). The city has a considerable trade with the surrounding country, in which large quantities of tobacco and hemp are produced; its manufactures include lumber, brooms, chairs, shoes, hemp twine, canned vegetables and glass bottles. The total value of the city’s factory product in 1905 was $1,747,338, being 31.6% more than in 1900. Frankfort (said to have been named after Stephen Frank, one of an early pioneer party ambushed here by Indians) was founded in 1786 by General James Wilkinson, then deeply interested in trade with the Spanish at New Orleans, and in the midst of his Spanish intrigues. In 1792 the city was made the capital of the state. In 1862, during the famous campaign in Kentucky of General Braxton Bragg (Confederate) and General D. C. Buell (Federal), Frankfort was occupied for a short time by Bragg, who, just before being forced out by Buell, took part in the inauguration of Richard J. Hawes, chosen governor by the Confederates of the state. Hawes, however, never discharged the duties of his office. During the bitter contest for the governorship in 1900 between William Goebel (Democrat) and William S. Taylor (Republican), each of whom claimed the election, Goebel was assassinated at Frankfort. (See also [Kentucky].) Frankfort received a city charter in 1839.
FRANKFORT-ON-MAIN (Ger. Frankfurt am Main), a city of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, principally on the right bank of the Main, 24 m. above its confluence with the Rhine at Mainz, and 16 m. N. from Darmstadt. Always a place of great trading importance, long the place of election for the German kings, and until 1866, together with Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck, one of the four free cities of Germany, it still retains its position as one of the leading commercial centres of the German empire. Its situation in the broad and fertile valley of the Main, the northern horizon formed by the soft outlines of the Taunus range, is one of great natural beauty, the surrounding country being richly clad with orchard and forest.
Frankfort is one of the most interesting, as it is also one of the wealthiest, of German cities. Apart from its commercial importance, its position, close to the fashionable watering-places of Homburg, Nauheim and Wiesbaden, has rendered it “cosmopolitan” in the best sense of the term. The various stages in the development of the city are clearly indicated in its general plan and the surviving names of many of its streets. The line of the original 12th century walls and moat is marked by the streets of which the names end in -graben, from the Hirschgraben on the W. to the Wollgraben on the E. The space enclosed by these and by the river on the S. is known as the “old town” (Altstadt). The so-called “new town” (Neustadt), added in 1333, extends to the Anlagen, the beautiful gardens and promenades laid out (1806-1812) on the site of the 17th century fortifications, of which they faithfully preserve the general ground plan. Of the medieval fortifications the picturesque Eschenheimer Tor, a round tower 155 ft. high, dating from 1400 to 1428, the Rententurm (1456) on the Main and the Kuhhirtenturm (c. 1490) in Sachsenhausen, are the sole remains. Since the demolition of the fortifications the city has greatly expanded. Sachsenhausen on the south bank of the river, formerly the seat of a commandery of the Teutonic Order (by treaty with Austria in 1842 all property and rights of the order in Frankfort territory were sold to the city, except the church and house), is now a quarter of the city. In other directions also the expansion has been rapid; the village of Bornheim was incorporated in Frankfort in 1877, the former Hessian town of Bockenheim in 1895, and the suburbs of Niederrad, Oberrad and Seckbach in 1900.
The main development of the city has been to the north of the river, which is crossed by numerous bridges and flanked by fine quays and promenades. The Altstadt, though several broad streets have been opened through it, still preserves many of its narrow alleys and other medieval features. The Judengasse (Ghetto), down to 1806 the sole Jews’ quarter, has been pulled down, with the exception of the ancestral house of the Rothschild family—No. 148—which has been restored and retains its ancient façade. As the Altstadt is mainly occupied by artisans and petty tradesmen, so the Neustadt is the principal business quarter of the city, containing the chief public buildings and the principal hotels. The main arteries of the city are the Zeil, a broad street running from the Friedberger Anlage to the Rossmarkt and thence continued, by the Kaiserstrasse, through the fine new quarter built after 1872, to the magnificent principal railway station; and the Steinweg and Goethestrasse, which lead by the Bockenheimer Tor to the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, a broad boulevard intersecting the fashionable residential suburb to the N.W.
Churches.—The principal ecclesiastical building in Frankfort is the cathedral (Dom). Built of red sandstone, with a massive tower terminating in a richly ornamented cupola and 300 ft. in height, it is the most conspicuous object in the city. This building, in which the Roman emperors were formerly elected and, since 1562, crowned, was founded in 852 by King Louis the German, and was later known as the Salvator Kirche. After its reconstruction (1235-1239), it was dedicated to St Bartholomew. From this period date the nave and the side aisles; the choir was completed in 1315-1338 and the long transepts in 1346-1354. The cloisters were rebuilt in 1348-1447, and the electoral chapel, on the south of the choir, was completed in 1355. The tower was begun in 1415, but remained unfinished. On the 15th of August 1867 the tower and roof were destroyed by fire and considerable damage was done to the rest of the edifice. The restoration was immediately taken in hand, and the whole work was finished in 1881, including the completion of the tower, according to the plans of the 15th century architect, Hans von Ingelheim. In the interior is the tomb of the German king Günther of Schwarzburg, who died in Frankfort in 1349, and that of Rudolph, the last knight of Sachsenhausen, who died in 1371. Among the other Roman Catholic churches are the Leonhardskirche, the Liebfrauenkirche (church of Our Lady) and the Deutschordenskirche (14th century) in Sachsenhausen. The Leonhardskirche (restored in 1882) was begun in 1219, it is said on the site of the palace of Charlemagne. It was originally a three-aisled basilica, but is now a five-aisled Hallenkirche; the choir was added in 1314. It has two Romanesque towers. The Liebfrauenkirche is first mentioned in 1314 as a collegiate church; the nave was consecrated in 1340. The choir was added in 1506-1509 and the whole church thoroughly restored in the second half of the 18th century, when the tower was built (1770). Of the Protestant churches the oldest is the Nikolaikirche, which dates from the 13th century; the fine cast-iron spire erected in 1843 had to be taken down in 1901. The Paulskirche, the principal Evangelical (Lutheran) church, built between 1786 and 1833, is a red sandstone edifice of no architectural pretensions, but interesting as the seat of the national parliament of 1848-1849. The Katharinenkirche, built 1678-1681 on the site of an older building, is famous in Frankfort history as the place where the first Protestant sermon was preached in 1522. Among the more noteworthy of the newer Protestant churches are the Peterskirche (1892-1895) in the North German Renaissance style, with a tower 256 ft. high, standing north from the Zeil, the Christuskirche (1883) and the Lutherkirche (1889-1893). An English church, in Early English Gothic style, situated adjacent to the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, was completed and consecrated in 1906.
Of the five synagogues, the chief (or Hauptsynagoge), lying in the Börnestrasse, is an attractive building of red sandstone in the Moorish-Byzantine style.