Benson is a historic neighborhood in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. Now a pocket within

North Omaha North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the ...

, Benson Place was originally platted in 1887 and was annexed into the City of Omaha in 1917. Actor

Nick Nolte Nicholas King Nolte (born February 8, 1941) is an American actor. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1991 film ''The Prince of Tides''. He received ...

lived in the Benson area before moving to the Westside district.

History

Erastus Benson Erastus A. Benson (February 10 1854–1932) was a banker, investor and land speculator in Omaha, Nebraska. Born and raised in Iowa, after graduating from the University of Iowa Benson speculated in land around Omaha. After investing in early busi ...

was a

land speculator In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many s ...

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

and philanthropist who unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Omaha in 1906. He was an early investor in marketing

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

's inventions, including the phonograph and the

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

. In 1887, he purchased approximately of farm land from Edward Creighton, an Omaha businessman. On March 4, 1887, Benson

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...

ted the land on the Creighton farm and called it Benson Place, later changing it to Benson. The newly platted community was located along Military Avenue, approximately northwest of Omaha. In the mid-to-late 1910s, Omaha embarked on a course of annexations of suburban communities to its north and west. Residents of Benson, anticipating annexation of their own city, decided to build as many civic improvements as they could: they feared that Omaha would be inattentive to their desire for such improvements after annexation, and they knew that following annexation, the larger city would have to assume the debts incurred to build the improvements. To this end, they built a new combined city hall and fire station in late 1915.Moffett, Chad, Emily Schill, Erin Pogany, and Christina Slattery. Retrieved 2013-10-28. On May 25, 1917, the city of

annexed the town of Benson. At that time, it was and had 5000 residents.History of Nebraska - Chapter 35
, retrieved 14dec2006 Krug Park was an amusement park located at 2936 North 52nd Street in Benson. In 1930 the park was the site of the worst roller coaster accident in the country to that year,"Survivor recalls Krug Park tragedy,"
KETV.com. Retrieved 2007-09-08. and in 1940 it was closed. Today Gallagher Park is located on the original Krug Park site. Actor

lived in the Benson neighborhood on North 56th Street before his family moved to the Westside district.

Historic district

The Benson Commercial Historic District, centered along Maple St. between North 59th and North 63rd Sts., was listed on the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2020. It includes numerous contributing buildings. Includes numerous photos from 2020. Benson has many historic buildings, including commercial, governmental, educational and residential structures. The following, many within the historic district, are some of them: * Benson High School, 5120 Maple Street * Masonic Temple, 5901 Maple Street, 1926-built, three-story Classical Revival building * Commercial Building, 5913 Maple Street * E.H. Olson Building, 5918 Maple Street * Commercial Building, 6016 Maple Street * Commercial Building, 6020 Maple Street * Commercial Building, 6067 Maple Street * John Sorenson Building, 6104 Maple Street * Jas. A. Howard Building, 6105 Maple Street * Bank of Benson, 6108 Maple Street * Commercial Building, 6115 Maple Street * Commercial Building, 6117 Maple Street * B.H. Post Building, 6214 Maple Street * Benson U.S. Post Office, 6223 Maple Street

References

{{Community areas of Omaha Former municipalities in Nebraska Landmarks in North Omaha, Nebraska Neighborhoods in Omaha, Nebraska History of North Omaha, Nebraska Populated places established in 1887 1887 establishments in Nebraska