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Wednesday, May 18, 2022

F.B. Franks Performs Feats of Strength, May 18, 1922

Strong Man Lifts 17 Others in Greensboro. . . Picks Up Freight Car Wheels, Lets Auto Run Over Him, Breaks Spikes With Teeth

Greensboro, May 17—He claims the title of “America’s Strongest Man,” and the hundreds of persons who have watched his exhibitions for the past two days on the lot south of the Banner building are willing to let the title stand. There is no opposition.

His stunts range all over the calendar. One of the most spectacular is the holding up of a pair of freight car trucks weighing 2,450 pounds. The strong man—his real name is F.B. Franks—slips on a heavy leather harness over his shoulders with one end attached to the trucks He straddles the axle and the blocks under the wheels are pulled out. For perhaps a minute he holds the trucks in the air while his whole body quivers under the tremendous strain.

Another stunt is to load 17 men on a platform and then, bowing under it like some Sampson, raise the entire crowd in the air and hold them. The weight is something over 2,500 pounds. Franks claims to have lifted elsewhere 23 men weighing with the platform 3,780 pounds.

He lies on the ground, lays bare his stomach and lets a Willys-Knight sedan run over it. He shakes and worries with his teeth railroad spikes driven into crossties until the spikes break It is like a cat playing with a rat. He places a steel bar across the back of his neck while half a dozen men hang on the ends and holds them till the bar breaks.

“No, I don’t train,” Franks said afterwards. He was smoking a cigarette. “I eat anything I want, but no much meat. I’m the strongest man in America and I’m going to New York to contest the title of the world’s strongest man.

From The Union Herald, May 18, 1922

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