Most of the homes in this district were built after the Mackinaw Development Corporation was created in 1887. The corporation took its name from the Cincinnati, Jackson, and Mackinaw Railroad, which reached Franklin from Darke County in 1886, and it subdivided the farm of Lewis Gaston Anderson. Anderson, a grain and lumber dealer in Franklin, was elected in 1881 to the 65th Ohio General Assembly as a state senator, and his Italian Villa-style home still stands at the northwest corner of Miami and Lake Avenues. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1980, the district includes 30 houses that directly contribute to its historical character, along with other compatible homes. Queen Anne is the dominant architectural style, but the district also includes Italianate, Second Empire, Colonial, Georgian, Spanish Revival, Eastlake, Cape Cod, and Bungalow houses. It was home to many of Franklin’s mercantile and industrial leaders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.