Heormans | History of Benton Kansas

Benton township was named after or for the late Thomas Benton Murdock, using his middle name. The township is adapted to agriculture and stock raising. In 1915 there were five school districts in the township, and about seven miles of the Missouri Pacific railway. The town of Benton was platted in 1883 and by 1915 contained a high school, two churches, one grain elevator, five general stores, two hardware stores, one drug store, one bank, one hotel, two garages, two physicians, two blacksmith shops, the orders of the K. of P. and the Independent Order of Oddfellows, each having their own halls, a lumber yard, coal yard and numerous other lines of business were represented. The town was lighted by electricity. Benton also had one newspaper, The Benton "Bulletin."

Among the early settlers were J. P. J. Nelson, J. Edmiston, W. H. Litson, E. E. Armstrong, Noah Siders, William Coverdale, R. C. Spaulding, R. F. Moore, W. A. Aikman, John H. Clark, S. H. Dickerson, Robert Dodge, M. T. Wallace, J. C. Henrie, Ed Harding, M. Gidly, E. H. Stoddard, S. Shafer, I. W. Maple, E. W. Rollings, M. W. Priest, John Imman, Andrew Duffey, L. A. Harper, H. W. Beck, E. Durley, Eli Lytle, A. Melrose, D. Barnett, George Medworth, W. M. Mather, W. M. McCune, J. L. McCune, Charles Hazelhurst and many others.

The Benton Grade School was built in 1954. The high school was torn down in 1963 and the students in Benton now attend Circle High in Towanda. The Circle Middle School in Benton accommodates the 7th and 8th grades and was completed in 2002. The City of Benton has changed enormously since the early 1900's. There are still two churches, one grain elevator, one bank, one garage, one restaurant, a filling station and car wash, an antique mall, post office, fire station, Flint Hills Windmill service, a community building and the city building. Also, Benton boasts that it is home to the Prairie Rose Wranglers, who have performed at Carnegie Hall in 2003 and 2004.

Benton's 2004 Winter Ice Storm