Basketball was invented in December 1891 and it didn't take long for local people to get involved.

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Franklin and Oil City played a game over Thanksgiving in 1903, according to -- and get this -- a front page article in the Nov. 27, 1903, edition of The News-Herald.

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There might have been Franklin-Oil City games around here even before that -- haven't come across any -- and we know there have been plenty since. 

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Girls/women have been playing since -- again, at least -- the 20th century teens.  (Travel was a bit different back then. The Franklin girls planned to leave "on the 5 o'clock Pennsylvania train" for a game with Titusville in 1924.)

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Dr. James Naismith, in case you were born yesterday, is credited with the invention of the game. Naismith was a Canadian physical edition instructor at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass. He needed something to do indoors to keep the football and baseball players in shape during the winter. So he came up with a ball, a couple of peach baskets and some nails. The rest is history.

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I found the accompanying report while researching something else. I think I saw somewhere recently that before the Knights and the Nursery, Franklin was known as the "Millionaires." Haven't found anything yet. But I will say that before they became the Knights in 1954, TNH rarely referred to FHS athletic teams as the Nursery. It was either Franklin, FHS  or "the Red and Black." 

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The football rivalry between Oil City and Franklin dates back to 1896 and is one of the oldest in the state. ... "O'Bail boys" in the article refers to Chief Cornplanter, son of a white man named John O'Bail. TNH was always referring to Oil City as "O'Bail's Flats" and such in the early 20th century, but the paper cut that stuff out as the years progressed.

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And here's a blurb from 1901: