The RG Lamberton Building, located at 305 Thirteenth Street in Franklin, PA, has been a center of commerce, community activity and historical significance for the town of Franklin and the County of Venango for almost 150 years. The building has served as the site of Venango County’s first Opera House, headquarters of one of Franklin’s first newspapers, offices to one of the founding pioneers in the county’s banking history, home to one of America’s oldest volunteer town bands and during WWII, the VFW dance hall where veterans, servicemen and their families came for entertainment and social sustenance.

Erected in 1866 by local contractor and native of Frenchcreek Township, John Lindsay Hanna, the first three story building in Venango became a local marvel and hub of commerce. Hanna had partnered with John Duffield to finance, plan and construct the brick building, which covered the entire length of the east side of the block beginning at the corner of Elk and Thirteenth Street. It was the first of several “elegant” business blocks in what would become the City of Franklin. Duffield was a prominent local investor, who later became one of the original stockholders of the Exchange Bank of Franklin. The building quickly became a tourist attraction and was known as the “Hanna Block.”

The Hanna Block attracted tenants like the Wilt Brothers who ran a photographic Gallery on the third floor. In fact, the building itself was first immortalized in County history in an 1870 glass plate photo taken by the Wilt Brothers of the “skyline” of Franklin, taken from the building rooftop. The block has always been a source of interest and community pride. It continued to be featured in picture postcards sold to tourists in the early part of the 20th century.

Throughout the late 1880’s, the building also served as the headquarters for the Venango Spectator, a newspaper edited by A.P. Whitaker and his son John, the Wilt Brother’s Photography Gallery, the Silver Cornet Band (still in existence as one of America’s oldest traditional volunteer town bands) and a collection of dozens of other small businesses which included: the J.W. Reamer & Company Drug Store, the H. Cohen Clothing Store, the C.M. Reily Hat Shop, the Order of Red Men, W.W. Baker, the organizations A.O.U.W and I.O.O.F. and the offices of Deineman & Keene.

On January 28, 1886, a historic fire started on the stage of the Opera House that caused tremendous damage to the building. Many valuable newspaper files were lost as well as photo plates from the Wilt’s Gallery and the entire musical library and instruments of the Silver Coronet Band. Soon after the fire, John Hanna began to rebuild the block. The three story brick wall of the building bordering Elk and Thirteenth Street was still intact and that section of the building was rebuilt to the original three stories, but the remainder of the building was reduced to two stories. It remains that way today. Before reconstruction was completed, the building was sold to Robert G. Lamberton of the Lamberton family who had the name RG Lamberton on placed on the capstone.

Robert Lamberton was an early pioneer in Venango County. He started the Lamberton Bank in 1859 in a safe in the storage room of his family store to accommodate money coming into the County as a result of the new oil boom. Lamberton eventually opened the Lamberton Bank in the 200 block of Thirteenth Street and later built the Lamberton Bank building on the corner of Liberty and Thirteenth. After the completion of the re-construction, RG practiced law for a few years with his brother E.H. Lamberton in offices located in the Lamberton Building. Members of the Lamberton family remained active in the banking business in Pennsylvania until the end of the Great Depression in 1941 and their descendants are still active in the community, County and State.

The Liberty Building is located at 1423 Liberty Street, in the heart of downtown Franklin, PA.  The Liberty building is the tallest office building in Venango County and is a 60 second walk from the Courthouse and all of Franklin’s downtown stores and restaurants.  We also enjoy a wonderful view of Fountain Park from our 5th floor windows! 

There is a municipal parking lot behind the building. We have recently installed an entirely new OTIS elevator plant to make what was the “slowest elevator in NW PA” a real time saver. The building has great charm and is home to many law offices, financial investment offices and county administrative offices. Bathrooms are handicap accessible. Each floor in the building is subdivided into 21 private offices that can be kept that way or combined to form conference rooms and waiting areas. Our tenants enjoy an all inclusive rental, which means that the rent includes everything except their phone. We pay water, sewer, taxes, heating and garbage removal.