Benton, Illinois

City: Benton

County: Franklin

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 37.9833, -88.9167

Benton, Illinois is a city and the county seat of Franklin County, Illinois. Located in southern Illinois, twenty-five miles south of Mount Vernon, Benton was founded in 1840 and named for Thomas Hart Benton. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in Benton in July 1840, and the following year, it became the seat of Franklin County.

An Act Declaring the Town of Benton the Permanent Seat of Justice for the County of Franklin; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1989), 292; Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 30; Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 137.