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The Franklin Museum, with its collection of one-of-a-kind early 20th-century automobiles, is staying put.

Monday, lawyers from opposing sides of a probate dispute submitted to a Superior Court judge an agreement that calls for the immediate resignation of six of the museum's seven trustees. The trustees had sought to close the museum, sell its valuable assets and move two dozen unique cars to New York.

Judge Clark Munger declared the agreement, which the lawyers pounded out last week, a constructive resolution.

The cars were collected by the late Thomas H. Hubbard, who lived in Midtown. Hubbard, who died in 1993 at age 67, created a foundation to operate the museum with the intent of displaying the vintage vehicles in Tucson for at least 25 years.

The agreement permits Bourke Runton, an original trustee who challenged the other trustees, to remain on a newly constituted board.

Tom Peterson, former director of the Southern Division of the Arizona Historical Society and a car aficionado himself, has agreed to serve on the foundation's board.

The court will appoint a third trustee to the Thomas Hill Hubbard/H.H. Franklin Foundation.

The agreement also preserves a vast Southwestern art and archaeological collection assembled by Hubbard's aunt, Alice Carpenter of Oracle, that the trustees attempted to sell. The collection and the Franklin cars will remain in Hubbard's former 70-year-old adobe home, on five acres in the Richland Heights West neighborhood, near North Mountain Avenue and East Prince Road.

Runton's attorney, Eric Hager, said work on the agreement began last week in New York, where he traveled to take depositions from the trustees. Runton had filed a petition to remove the trustees from the foundation.

Hager said that after two depositions, the trustees decided not to continue fighting the effort to remove them. The trustees' attorney, Terrence Jackson, declined to comment.

Tucson can breathe a sigh of relief that a Tucson-born and cultivated treasure isn't leaving. While many locals are unaware of the collection, it is one of the best in the country, attracting several thousand visitors a year from around the country.

Franklin automobiles, which were made near Syracuse, N.Y., were known for their engineering, including their air-cooled engines.

That's what made them popular in the Southwest, said Peterson.

"Motorists didn't have to go looking for water," he said.

But aside from the Franklins' engineering trademarks, Peterson said the automobiles are an important part of our transportation history and, to a large degree, our way of life.

Hubbard began acquiring Franklins in the early 1950s. He also collected 23,000 mechanical drawings related to the automobiles, manufactured from 1902 to 1934.

Peterson, who knew Hubbard, said it was Hubbard's intention to keep the collection in Tucson as a resource for car enthusiasts and the general public. "Tucson was his home and a place he loved," Peterson said.

For Margaret "Evie" Lorenson, who was at Monday's court hearing, the decision was personal. Her late husband, Ron Lorenson, refurbished many of Hubbard's Franklin automobiles. Ron Lorenson also built a Franklin from scratch, based on the company's drawings in Hubbard's collection.

For the immediate future, the foundation will sell the New York property the trustees bought for $204,000, said attorney Hager.

The museum is expected to reopen on Oct. 18. The trustees will need Tucson's help to meet their other challenge: garnering support and strength for the Franklin Museum.

It's ours for good.