Once named Tuscarora Street, Franklin Street is the product of Judge Ebenezer Walden's subdivision of his personal estate, the southern boundary of which was Edward Street and which abutted Lewis Allen's farm to the north. From the beginning the street attracted professionals who wanted to combine comfortable suburban living with the proximity to the boom of commerce So many doctors hung out their shingles on Franklin Street that it was called "Pill Alley" by Buffalo wags.

Franklin W. Caulkins, about whom little is known, was a local architect who specialized in acoustics. The "eal Estate and Builders' Monthly noted in 1886 that he "has made a specialty of that important incident of art, for of seventeen churches which he has designed, not one has failed to be acoustically perfect."

No.415 Franklin is one of the finest examples of applied Stick and Eastlake styling in the City.

- Sources:

• "Buffalo Architecture: A Guide," by Francis R. Kowsky, et. al. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981
• "A Field Guide to the Architecture and History of Allentown," by Louise McMillan, et. al. Buffalo: The Allentown Association, Inc., 1987

• Title Guarantee Building Caulkins converted the building in 1880
• Highlights of Buffalo's History, 1882