Life for the
band was far better after the Second World War than it had been after the
first.
In fact, music
throughout the area was booming, with both Oil City and Rocky Grove fielding
strong, active bands.
The Franklin
Band maintained a strong line-up, including many names that would be long
associated with the band: Roy Smith, Harold Pixley, Bob "Ish"
English, Jerry Frey, Harlow Bower, and Dick Eshelman.
New faces came into the area in this period as well, including Bob
Hulings and his old college friend, Dick Abel.
By the
mid-fifties, the band was beginning to feel a membership pinch. The mid-fifties
were a period interested in modern, new, forward-looking things-- a town band
seemed a bit quaint, old-fashioned.
In 1955 the
city finally erected a brick band stand in the park, dedicating it as a war
memorial band stand. The bandstand would be modified a bit in the eighties, but
it is that same war memorial band stand that the band performs on every summer.
Here's a photo of the band taken a few years after the new bandstand was
built. The photographer is upstairs in City Hall, shooting at the band down in
the street in front of fire station.
