Benjamin Franklin High School is a public high school in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is located in central southeast Portland in the South Tabor neighborhood, at the foot of Mt. Tabor.HistoryFounded in 1914, Franklin is Portland's fourth high school. 136 students attended the first year. The current brick building, designed by Floyd Naramore, opened in September 1917.Due to the baby boom and the passing of a $25 million building levy by the school district in 1947, a new addition for arts, industrial arts, and home economics departments was slated. The Franklin football field, also known as "The Bowl", was originally planned out as a walkway towards the school, making the front of the school face towards SE Division Street and the back facing SE Woodward Avenue. The walkway was going to go from Division Street all the way to the school, but a heavy rainstorm one night caused a 20' sinkhole in the spot where the football field is today.The Bowl was named at one time one of the best places to have a football game.Between 2015 and 2017, the school was modernized and expanded, with funding from a $482 million bond measure in 2012. The modernization included a new arts center, a new gym, biomedical, and culinary arts building, seismic retrofitting, and a new entrance.Benjamin Franklin statuesThe school contains two statues of Benjamin Franklin, for whom the school is named: a wooden figure hand-carved by a local artist in the 1970s and a larger stone statue near the Franklin Bowl athletic field, affectionately known as Benji. Benji is an honorary graduate of the school, having been fitted for a massive mortar-board cap and tassel by the Class of 1976. The wooden statue had his cane stolen sometime around 2007 by vandals who broke into the school.
