Franklin Heights came to life as a middle-income community settled by blue-collar Milwaukeeans who wanted to work in the industrial corridor along 30th Street. No company in that corridor employed more people than A.O. Smith, the largest manufacturer of auto frames in the world. Wages from the Smith plant helped the heavily German work force of the 1920s fill the neighborhood with bungalows, and a later generation of African-Americans maintain the local tradition of homeownership. The loss of A.O. Smith and related industries left a gap that city leadership has aimed to fill with its Century City initiative.