the franklin 500

2.3 mile loop in Franklin, Massachusetts. Popular in the 1990s by high school students to meet up and find out where everybody was getting drunk

This was a driving loop in Franklin Massachusetts popular with high school kids, especially from Tri Country Regional Vocational Technical School, for many years. Because Tri County was a regional school The Franklin 500 attracted teenagers from several surrounding towns and was a social gathering. It started when Franklin Village Plaza outdoor shopping mall opened around 1987. The loop consisted of driving around Franklin Village Plaza, then east on rt 140 to McDonald's, around the parking lot, then West on rt 140 to the mall, over and over and over and over and over. If you wanted to meet a friend, you just had to park at one end of the loop, and wait and eventually your friend would drive by. One full loop was approximately 4.8 miles.