Named for the United States Senator Thomas H. Benton. Benton, located on an alkali flat two or three miles west of Fort Steele (a military reservation at the railroad crossing of the North Platte River) was another railroad tent town that sprang into being in the year 1868. This town was called Benton and like Bear Town, there was a leavening element among its residents, and they later helped greatly in developing Rawlins into a major Wyoming town. During the first few months of Benton's existence, it was a reputed moral replica of Sodom and Gomorrah, with devotees of every form of outlawry. Crime control was absent in Benton. (WPA)
County:
Carbon
Feature Category:
Manmade Features
More Reading:
Benton, Wyoming : a "hell-on-wheels" town which quickly was, then wasn't in the 1868 passing construction phase of the transcontinental railroad : one family's ties to it and those times and circumstances. Hanks, Ted L. Salem, Utah : T.L. Hanks, c2002.
