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The branch opened in 1977 as the Clay Branch — named at birth for the township it was built to serve — and was later renamed for Director Roger B. Francis. The present building stands at 52655 N. Ironwood Road, South Bend 46635: 17,578 square feet, two public meeting rooms, on the system's full-branch hours tier under the board-approved policy of 18 May 2026 (Francis, Centre, German, River Park, Tutt, LaSalle and Western branches: Monday–Thursday 9 a.m.–7 p.m., Friday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Sunday closed), and active at November 2026. Its relation to the town, computed from the carriers' own coordinates — the branch's listed position (41.728896, −86.217759) against the town's 2020 Gazetteer internal point (41.714238, −86.232189) — is about 1.26 miles north-east of the town's centre, about 1.05 miles from its north-east corner; it is the only SJCPL branch in Clay Township. The sibling Roseland fragment measures the same branch from Roseland's line ("some two miles south of the town line"); both measurements stand, each from its own town, and neither may be quoted for the other (the pair is registered in the pass note). The 2007 bond issue — $18 million system-wide — funded replacing the existing Francis Branch in Clay Township with a new building of nearly double the size, and the branch stood under construction in June 2008. Its replacement building's opening year was tested once more, across dedication coverage, annual-report classes and the bond record, and stands not reached — gap G-LB-2, carried, with a new settler class named: the State Library's annual-report statistics tables of library facilities and construction status for 2009 and 2010. The year 2009 belongs to the German Branch and is not borrowed. In the system's ten-year revitalisation plan, Our Next Chapter, the Francis Branch's turn comes in 2028.