Franklin Idaho Days

At Idaho Days in Franklin a cannon fires candy into the air. It shares the program with a grand parade of patriotic floats, a car show of restored classic vehicles, and fireworks over the town. The 2026 festival ran June 25 through 27 in Franklin, which sits south of the Cub River on the east side of Cache Valley, between Preston and Logan, Utah. The town counted about 600 residents in 2010. Southeast Idaho’s tourism office lists the celebration from the city office at 128 East Main Street, and its historic tours cover what the office calls Idaho’s birthplace.

Three days at the end of June

The days begin early. In 2026 there was the Borderline Fun Run, and the Elks Club put on a community breakfast. The ball games ran alongside: a co-ed softball tournament, a 4v4 volleyball tournament, and what the organizers called “our first basketball tournament.” Live music and local acts filled the stage, with local talent all day Saturday. The organizers posted that Mitch Clark was “coming from Nashville.” For the movie in the park they told people to bring lawn chairs and blankets. The 2026 fireworks went up on Friday. Rain threatened Saturday that year, and the organizers said they had a plan in place if it stayed in the forecast. They credit sponsors with keeping their events free.

Each year the celebration crowns a Miss Idaho Days. The 2026 queen was Erin Perkins, with Macklee Bowcut and Oakley Smith as first and second attendants. Lily Dyer was named Spirit of Idaho Days. On June 29, 2026, the organizers posted “That’s a wrap for 2026!” and thanked the volunteers, sponsors, and attendees.

Franklin City runs the celebration. In June 2026, Josephine Samia reported to the city council that most of the arrangements were on schedule. She asked for fencing around the ball park and the bounce houses, a plan for blocking streets, and officials for the flag raising. The council approved her proposal to divide the work among a small group of volunteer chairmen for 2027, and she offered to help train them.

Earlier that month, on June 4, Governor Brad Little presented the Idaho State Historical Society’s Esto Perpetua Award in Boise to Mayor Packer and his wife, Barbara, who accepted it for the city. The award takes its name from the state motto, which means “Let it be perpetual.” In 2026, for America’s 250th anniversary, the Society gave it to festivals and community traditions, and Idaho Days was among the honorees. The Preston Citizen reported that Packer came home with a plaque and with thanks for Jo Samia and all the others who had organized the celebration over the years.

Frogs, a greased pole, and the 1860 on Little Mountain

Older newspaper accounts show how the program has shifted. In 2018 the celebration ran Thursday through Saturday, June 28 to 30, and John and Barbara Packer were its co-chairmen. They added a live frog-jumping contest (“must bring your own frog”), sack races, a greased pole with cash at the top, and greased pig contests for all ages. A spelling bee with cash prizes returned. One highlight of the three days was a crew putting together and taking apart a Model T Ford.

Thursday evening in 2018 began with Deidre Burgess opening a burger stand at 6 p.m. Children ran a color run in white T-shirts, and a box car race followed for all ages, adults included. Entrants built their own cars and brought a pit crew of three. At 9 p.m. the 1860 was lit on Little Mountain, and it was lit again Friday night after the Miss Idaho Days pageant in the LDS Church building on Main Street.

Saturday began at 6:45 a.m. with a cannon firing, then a flag raising at 7. Breakfast in the park, served by the Preston Elk Lodge, cost $5, or $20 for five. The parade lined up on First North at 10, ran down Main Street, and ended at the ball diamond. From 11 a.m. the stage held cloggers, ballroom dancers, cheer teams, the pageant contestants, the country singer Cathy Kirkbride, and a Wild West Show. At 5 p.m. the Franklin Lions Club served a Dutch oven dinner of potatoes, pork cube steak, coleslaw, homemade root beer, and dessert. After that came a benefit auction, live music by Tate and Taylee Porter, and fireworks at 10.

“The general consensus of most everyone that grew up in Franklin, like I did, agree that Idaho Days was one of the most exciting events of the summer,” John Packer said that year.

The 2010 celebration looked much the same. A flag-raising service at 6:15 a.m. was followed by breakfast in City Park. The park also held booths, bouncing castles, a dunk tank, and a spinning-wheel and wax-making demonstration. At Legacy Park, south of town, there was an obstacle course and a fly-fishing demonstration. The day closed with a Dutch oven dinner, an auction, the Border Town Band, and dancing in the church parking lot.

Affidavits for the oldest town

According to the Idaho State Journal, Franklin was founded in 1860 by 13 Mormon pioneer families as the first permanent settlement in Idaho. The Preston Citizen gives the settlement date as April 14, 1860. Half a century later, Franklin’s Idaho Pioneer Association collected affidavits from early settlers to prove that Franklin was the state’s oldest town. Their research and lobbying worked. On April 26, 1910, Governor James H. Brady proclaimed June 15 to be Idaho Day in honor of Franklin and its pioneers.

The sources differ slightly on the first celebration. The Preston Citizen says Idaho Days has been held every year since June 14, 1910. A historical marker on Main Street shows the Idaho Pioneer Association at the first Idaho Day celebration that year. The date later moved to the end of June. The Historical Society gives it as the last Saturday in June, and the Preston Citizen as the last weekend. The 2010 account calls Idaho Days part of Pioneer Days. The organizers say only that Franklin City has kept it “every year for over 100 years.”

A storekeeper’s thousand relics

The historic tours lead to buildings on Main Street that grew from the same pioneer association. Elliott Butterworth came from England at 16 and ran a general store in Franklin from 1869 to 1912. In those years he collected more than a thousand items from the town’s pioneer past and gave them to Franklin. The marker credits him with founding the Franklin Pioneer Association in 1910. In 1923 the association bought the old Franklin Co-operative Mercantile Institution store to display his collection. The store building is closed to the public now and can be seen only from outside.

When the collection outgrew the store, the association pushed for a new building. Architect Chris Gunderson designed the log Relic Hall in 1935, and it was completed in 1937. It stands on land the association deeded to the State of Idaho, and its timber was provided by the U.S. Forest Service and cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Relic Hall is on the National Register of Historic Places.

East of the Relic Hall stands the stone house of Lorenzo Hill Hatch, the community’s first bishop. It is built in the Greek revival style, with symmetrical doors and windows and cut stone quoins at the corners. Immigrant English masons quarried the stone for most of Franklin’s stone houses from a small hill northeast of town. When it was built, the Hatch house was the largest residence in Franklin. Nearby is the remaining part of the house John and Ann Doney built around 1870. It was threatened with demolition in 2002, and the Historical Society acquired it and moved it to its present site.

For Franklin’s 150th anniversary in 2010, the Hatch House reopened during Idaho Days after a restoration that took nearly a decade and cost $500,000. Then-Lieutenant Governor Brad Little and Mayor Wayne Priestly were scheduled for the ribbon cutting, and free tours of the Hatch and Doney homes followed. Peg Wing, 83, a member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, said that year that the celebration honors the Latter-day Saint pioneers who settled the valley but is not strictly an LDS holiday. “This used to be the biggest event in this area,” Wing said. “It’s for everyone.”