Benbow City Newspaper Articles
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BENBOW CITY PLATTED EAST OF ALTON
Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, May 3, 1907
The new town of Benbow will be laid out and platted in a short time
by A. E. Benbow, near the Standard Oil refinery site. Mr. Benbow
laid out a town here several years ago at Glassboro. He now has
taken the old plat and will rearrange it and add some more land to
it, making the new town of Benbow. The owner says that he expects to
have a thriving village there before long. The site is three
quarters of a mile from the Mississippi River.
BENBOW CITY AND STANDARD OIL
Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, June 15, 1907
From the East St. Louis Journal
At Benbow City, formerly Wood River, Ill., just sixteen miles from
East St. Louis, and about seven miles from Alton, the Standard Oil
Company is now erecting the largest oil refinery plant in the world,
and a city of tents and frame shacks has sprung up as if by magic
out of the wheat fields, along the tracks of the East St. Louis and
Alton street railway company, the Chicago and Alton, the Big Four,
the Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, and the Illinois Terminal
railway, all of which run parallel with the new town, while the
Illinois Terminal connects with the Illinois Central, Clover Leaf
Route, Wabash and the Litchfield and Madison, and will soon connect
with the Burlington and Ohio at Maryville.
The big plant, in course of construction, now employs 700 men, and
within a short time the construction force will be increased to
4,000 or 5,000 men, and the greatest need of the new city at present
is living accommodations for this army of workmen, as hundreds of
them are now obliged to sleep in tents and some of them at present
are even sleeping out by the side of campfires.
A. E. Benbow, who originally owned all of the land on which Benbow
City now stands, has sold over fifty lots for business and residence
purposes in the past few days, and the business people are starting
the erection of business houses immediately, and there will be work
at Benbow City from now on for hundreds of men in the building
trades.
Another feature of this great Standard Oil plant will be that they
will not only refine oil, but they will manufacture their own cars
for shipping, also all their barrels will be made at the big
cooperage now being erected at Benbow City, while a large eastern
chemical concern will erect a plant adjoining the refinery to
utilize the waste product, making vaseline, paraffin and wax, while
the Standard Oil company will erect a plant to manufacture candles
from the wax residue.
Four large cold storage plants will be erected at Benbow City, one
by the Anheuser-Busch Co., one by the East St. Louis and New Athens
Brewing Co., one by the Wagner Brewing Co., and the Columbia Brewing
Co. will also erect one, while the East St. Louis and New Athens Co.
are preparing to erect a large two-story hotel building.
From all indications, Benbow City will soon be a city in fact, as
well as in name, and Mr. Benbow in an interview yesterday stated
that the city would be incorporated within the next ninety days.
Real estate prices in the new city are advancing rapidly, and within
the next six months Benbow City will assuredly have a population of
over 5,000 people.
The magnitude of the plant being erected by the Standard Oil company
is so great, that words cannot describe it, and the visitor to
Benbow City, with its white tents and rude new buildings hastily
erected, its hundreds of workingmen pushing on the great plant, is
impressed by the spirit of hustle and energy, and the way the town
has sprung up in a night reminds one of a page from the Arabian
Nights, but the spirit of American energy displayed in this future
great city shows it is no dream, but a reality.
Anyone wishing to spend a profitable half-day can get on the Alton
car at Third and Broadway, and in less than an hour's time he can
alight in Benbow City and see a big manufacturing city budding from
out of the wheat fields. Many people think there are oil and gas in
Benbow City. We know there is ginger there.
BENBOW CITY
Source: Utica, New York Herald Dispatch, May 5, 1908
Benbow City, the first town which has grown up around the Standard
Oil Company's new refinery, eight miles south of Alton, Ill., began
its corporate existence as a village, Monday, with eighteen
registered voters and twenty-three saloons. Within the corporate
limits there are 300 persons. So there is one saloon for each
thirteen inhabitants. In addition to the twenty-three saloons, there
are seven brewery agencies, and each have $500 a year license.
Payments for the licenses have already been made, and the little
village starts out with a $15,000 nest egg. It will probably not
vote against license for some time.
BENBOW CITY - SALOON FOR EACH THIRTEEN
Source: The New York Times, May 5, 1908
Benbow City, the flat town, which has grown up around the Standard
Oil Company's new refinery, eight miles south of Alton, is the
"wettest" town in Illinois, and because it is the wettest it is also
the richest. It began its corporate existence as a village Monday
with eighteen registered voters and twenty-three saloons. Within the
corporate limits of Benbow City there are 300 persons and one saloon
for each thirteen inhabitants. In addition to the twenty-three
saloons there are seven brewery agencies, and each dram shop and
each agency pays $500 a year license. Payments for the coming year
have already been made, and the little village starts out in life
with a $15,000 nest egg. The liquor interests have paid $50 for each
man, woman, and child in the village, the per capita wealth of which
by reason of this revenue from the liquor interests is greater than
that of any town or city in the United States.
ALICE BLIGH FOUND GUILTY OF HARBORING YOUNG FEMALES
Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, January 31, 1917
One of the first real acts in the work of cleaning up the dives
which infested Benbow City came today, when the Circuit Court jury,
which tried the case of Mrs. Alice Bligh, charged with harboring
females under 18 years of age in a place conducted for immoral
purposes, reported a verdict finding her guilty. Her punishment will
be from one to five years in the penitentiary, unless the court sets
aside the jury's findings. The woman testified in her defense that
she had nothing to do with the dance hall where the girls were taken
and kept. However, the girls had told their own story of how they
were persuaded to go to the dive where they were kept for a few
weeks. A. E. Benbow was among the witnesses. He told of renting to
Mrs. Bligh a house in which she lived, but was not called upon to
testify as to the character of the place. Just as the jury was
finishing making its report to the court, another jury was just
accepted to try the husband of Mrs. Bligh on the same charge as the
wife defended herself against. Mrs. Bligh had told the court that
she has seven children ranging from 5 to 28 years, and that five of
them were with her.
GRAND FAREWELL OF BENBOWITES
Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, February 5, 1917
There was a grand farewell in Benbow City Saturday night, a sort of
a turning backward of the "Spirit of '76." The well-known historic
painting which shows three figures marching to martial strains
illustrated a patriotic protest against British misrule. The parade
Saturday night was a protest against the beginning of decent rule.
According to stories which came from Benbow City, the work of the
Circuit Court jury last week, which convicted three persons and gave
them penal terms for running vice resorts in Benbow City, made a
deep impression down there. Everybody in Benbow City felt that the
lid was on and it was no joke either. The falling of the curtain on
the revels of Benbow City is sure, and the bell had rung for the
curtain to drop. Between the time for the curtain bell and the
dropping of the curtain on the last act which will be the winding up
of Benbow City as a municipality, it was resolved to have a big
time. A party was organized which paraded from saloon to saloon.
None was missed, and there were plenty of places to be visited to
make sure that everybody who was in the party could get plenty to
drink. It was a wild sort of a farewell party. In every place the
crowd visited there was a big time, and it is said that the number
of the people celebrating had grown to 23, which is the greater part
of the population of Benbow City now.
BENBOW CITY - THE "RED ONION" IS NO MORE
Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, February 8, 1917
The Red Onion, one of the characteristic places of Benbow City,
owned by Alton former gamblers, has been closed. The shock given by
the recent Circuit Court convictions of Benbow City denizens, and
the failure of the gang to get new trials, threw a cold chill into
the hearts of the Red Onion _abitues. So, the Red Onion is no more.
It has been closed tight and the legions of levity, the friends of
follies, have departed for good. It is said to be a forecast of an
early suspension by some of the other places in Benbow City.
According to those who know, some of these places had some of their
prosperity from money spent by some Alton people of more or less
prominence, who found the Red Onion and similar places resorts where
one could do about as he pleased.
BENBOW MERGED WITH WOOD RIVER
MAYOR BENBOW IN SILK HAT & DRESS COAT
Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, May 22, 1917
A get together meeting of the officials of Benbow City and Wood
River was held last night for the purpose of finishing up all the
legal formalities necessary for the annexation of Benbow City to
Wood River. The meeting was held in the Wood River village hall, and
was attended by the mayors of both villages, Mayor Beach and Mayor
Benbow, and by the councilmen and officers of both villages. All of
the books, papers and documents of Benbow City were brought into the
Wood River council chamber by Village Clerk William Beers, and were
turned over to Village Clerk Fred Shoemaker of Wood River. With them
was $665.35 in cash, which was the balance in the treasury of Benbow
City after all bills were paid. Also a deed for three lots on the
Benbow City baseball diamond, owned by the village of Benbow, was
made over to the village of Wood River. The best of feeling
prevailed and the two villages, which had long been rivals and whose
officers had been many times at outs with one another, were joined
together in a strong bond of friendship. It was a big affair for
Mayor Benbow. He came wearing his high silk hat and a Prince Albert
coat and carried a gold headed cane. He remarked to his friends
after the meeting that he was now free of official worry with the
passing of Benbow City.