Ellwood City

Expansive fields and forests rustle in the breeze along Route 288 and cover the banks of the Connoquenessing Creek in Franklin Township. “It’s an open space, country setting. What sets it apart would be all the history, family names and farms here,” says Mike Maltarski, a real estate agent with RE/MAX who has lived in Franklin Township since 2007. “There’s weirdly a lot of history — the old general store that’s just a house now and where the furnace on Old Furnace Road used to be. A lot of people now are entrepreneurs, starting a business and handing it down from generation to generation.” Settled between Ellwood City and Zelienople, Franklin Township is connected to flourishing small towns and more distant urban Western Pennsylvania hubs without losing rural serenity and pastoral vistas laid out under wide-open skies. Close to Ellwood City, lots tend to be grassy, tree-shaded and less than a half-acre in size along quiet streets. Homes here run the gamut from early 20th-century bungalows, Cape Cods and farmhouses to midcentury and later suburban forms including ranch-style homes which sell for $80,000 to $350,000. Houses outside of neighborhoods continue to be a mixed bag, sitting on anywhere from a single acre to upward of 20 and selling for $170,000 to $1.3 million depending on acreage, age and size of construction and what agricultural or commercial uses the land can be utilized for. “A lot of people would love an acreage, but smaller communities and yards are more affordable. Either way, property goes quick in the Riverside Beaver County School District, it’s hard to hold onto them,” Maltarski says. Franklin Township has a CAP Index crime score of 2 out of 10 compared to the national average of 4. Beyond hunting and fishing on private property, recreationists of all stripes can find public parks and private facilities throughout Franklin Township. Launches like Christian’s Landing and the one on McKim Way start kayakers and canoers down the snaking curves of Connoquenessing Creek, affectionately called The Connie. Franklin Community Park is one of the Riverside Baseball Federation’s home fields for youth league games and practices. Niche sportsmen try new things or hone their skills on the range at Connoquenessing Valley Bowman and on the indoor polo field at Ople Farms. Family farms like Windy Ridge Dairy sell fresh milk and ice cream in small markets, while others like Duffy Family Farm require patrons to place an order before stopping to see the cows and pick up grass-fed beef. For more of a one-stop shop, Franklin Plaza Shopping Center bookends a row of small retailers and health care clinics with a Giant Eagle and Busy Beaver. In an unassuming brick building, Christy’s Restaurant serves homestyle diner staples in a dining room packed with wooden booths lit by stained-glass light fixtures. A handful of churches hold services throughout the township. Tucked as it is between the small towns of Ellwood City and Zelienople, Franklin Township is mere miles away from main street-style businesses like Marketplace On Main’s tchotchke-filled showrooms and Goodfello’s Pizza Pasta & Grille’s hole-in-the-wall pizza joint fare. For more robust big-box shopping trips, residents drive 15 miles to the ever-expanding list of retailers lining Route 19 in Cranberry Township. Riverside Elementary School earns a B from Niche, as do Riverside Middle School and Riverside High School. While students excel in academics and extracurriculars of all kinds, the high school’s baseball team is a major point of Panther Pride. “The boys won the state championship in 2023 and are set up to try again in 2024,” Maltarski says. “Coach Oliastro is the most winning baseball coach in WPIAL history, all he did was win in 2023. At the first playoff home game there had to be 600, 700 people there.” Sliding barn doors are the gateway to four shows per season at the aptly named Red Barn Theatre. Carnival games, bounce houses, a petting zoo and firehose target practice are just some of the activities that draw hundreds to National Night Out at Franklin Plaza each August. Just down Route 288, Ellwood City is known for community events of their own, including the weekend-long Ellwood City Arts, Crafts, Food and Entertainment Festival which has platformed local vendors each summer for more than 40 years. Commuters get around Western Pennsylvania on major highways just outside Franklin Township, including I-76 and I-79 which provide a 35-mile drive into downtown Pittsburgh. Quieter, connected country roads mark the 16-mile and 25-mile commutes into New Castle and Butler. Hobbyists and corporate jetsetters take off from Zelienople Municipal Airport. The Connoquenessing Creek spills over and floods waterfront properties and creek-spanning bridges along Route 65 during periods of heavy rain. While some property-owners live up on stilts or cinderblocks close to the creek, others avoid the floodplain altogether.