Benson was built where the Southern Pacific Railroad crossed the San Pedro River in 1880. Three of its historic districts are printed on this map: the Benson Railroad Historic District, the Benson Historic Barrio and the Apache Powder Historic Residential District. So are the Hi Wo Company Grocery, the Smith-Beck House and the Oasis Court, along with McGrew Spring and Jog Tank.
Benson is in Cochise County, about 45 miles east-southeast of Tucson.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of the San Pedro valley comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The city covers 41.5 square miles. The Benson Historic Barrio, the Hi Wo Company Grocery and the Smith-Beck House are on the National Register of Historic Places, and we checked them against National Park Service records. Benson had 5,355 people at the 2020 census.
The river crossing
Long before the railroad, the upper San Pedro had a traditional crossing, known as the Middle Crossing, used by the Southern Emigrant Trail and the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line. It was the site of the San Pedro Station of the Butterfield Overland Mail, and from 1871 William Ohnesorgen ran a wagon depot there. In 1878 he built a toll bridge to carry mining supplies to new camps such as Fairbank and Tombstone, and two years later the railroad bridge went in at the same spot. The railroad, coming overland from California, chose the Benson site to cross the river, and the town was named for Judge Benson, a friend of Charles Crocker, the Southern Pacific’s president.
Ore and metal came into Benson by wagon from the mines at Tombstone, Fairbank, Contention City and Bisbee, and freight went back out to them by rail. The railhead here was about 25 miles from Tombstone, its closest rail connection until 1882. The New Mexico and Arizona Railroad arrived that year and the Arizona Southeastern followed in 1894, built by the Copper Queen company of Bisbee to haul its ore to Benson. That year Benson was the only place in Arizona served by three independent railroad lines. The population grew from 300 in 1880 to 1,200 in 1910, until new lines in 1901 and 1910 bypassed the town and left it with a single line.
Three districts
The Benson Railroad Historic District, near the site of the old passenger and freight depot, keeps 11 contributing buildings. Among them, on East 3rd Street, are the Arnold Hotel, one of the largest historic buildings in Benson, with a veranda on all four sides, and the Queen Anne house of the railroad’s roadmaster. The house at 285 East 3rd has two roofs, one built over the other for insulation, and its district’s page calls it the largest example of double-roofing in Arizona.
The Benson Historic Barrio grew up between 1898 and 1901 along both sides of East Fifth Street, on the east side of the original townsite. Railroad workers built frame houses west of Gila Street, known as Barrio Americano, and ranching and farming families, mostly of Mexican descent, built adobe houses to the east, known as Barrio Mexicano. Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, built in 1895 by the hotel owner Don Miguel Jose Castaneda and William Ohnesorgen, is part of the district, and its page says the barrio has kept a close-knit identity around the church, its small family stores and its social club.
The Apache Powder Company, today Apache Nitrogen Products, was formed in the 1920s just outside town and became a major employer, and many barrio residents worked there, through the Great Depression too. In 1925 it bought land on West 6th Street to house its managers. Those houses, mostly Craftsman bungalows, along with the company’s hospital and a park the company later gave to the city, were listed on the National Register in 1994 as the Apache Powder Historic Residential District.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Streets and roads: W Trails End Rd, W Diamond Dr, Cricket Ln, W Aviation Dr, Aviation Dr, W Eeyore Ln, Dark Star Rd, Getzwiller Ln, Rio Ln, Rocking Horse Ln, N Ocotillo Rd, E Old Mill Rd.
More street names, A to Z
Airport Rd, Andy Ln, Astronomers Rd, Brook Dr, Canary Spring Rd, Canyon Overlook Trl, Casa del Rio Dr, Catalina St, Choate Dr, Cougar Ln, Debbie Ln, E Barney Ln, E Catclaw St, E Cowboy Way, E Cowgirl Way, E Goldenrod Ln, E Heartleaf Ln, Elila Dr, E Morris Ln, E Old Pomerene Rd, E Saguaro Dr, E Sunny Ln, Fourth St, Frontage Rd, Hackberry Rd, Hilltop Ln, Honey Locust, Libertine Ln, Madison St, Matthews Ln, N Brandy Ln, N Faded Love Ln, N Madison St, N Ocotillo Ave, N Rainbow Pl, N River Rd, N Sabin St, Oasis Ct, Ocotillo Ave, Ocotillo St, Park Entrance Rd, Park Svc Rd, Patton St, Post Rd, Ranch Ln, Rickets Rd, Ringtail Rd, Sabin St, Sage Rd, San Pedro, S Homestead Rd, Sipes Ln, S Manzanita Pl, S Quail Rd, S Sabin St, S Stallion Ranch Rd, Star View Pl, Sullivan Rd, Sunny Ln, S Via Coyote, S Whetstone, Via Estaca, W Ap Polston Rd, W Brooks Dr, W Claymore Dr, W Desert Vis, Whetstone Ed, Whetstone Ranch Rd, Whetstone Rd, W Hilltop Ln, W Hollyhock Ln, Wild Rabbit Rd, W Jennella Dr, W Kartchner, W La Vereda Final, W Patton St, W Post Ranch Rd, W Rendon Way, W Sipe Ln, W Skyline Rd, W Spear Ranch Rd, W Via Javelina, W Vidal Trl, W Vivian Pl, Yucca Ln.
Fourth Street
The Hi Wo Company Grocery, at Gila and East 4th Street, opened in 1896 as one of the first commercial buildings in Benson. Hi Wo, its first owner, was an immigrant from China, and his descendants kept the store open until 1989. Also on 4th Street is the Oasis Court, an auto court from the years when Benson was becoming a major junction of state and national highways. Its builders were Charles and Minnie Gardner, and in the 1940s the archaeologist and ornithologist Lyndon L. Margrave and his wife bought the block, had the Western artist Vern Parker paint the signs and sold Native American and Mexican crafts in the shop. The Smith-Beck House is listed on the National Register as well, and McGrew Spring and Jog Tank are printed on the map too.
The city page says Benson today is perhaps best known as the gateway to Kartchner Caverns State Park, 9 miles to the south, where local cavers found the caves in 1974. It’s also home to the Singing Wind Bookshop, which specializes in books about the Southwest. Amtrak’s Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle stop at 105 East 4th Street.
This Benson map is a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of an old railroad town. It’s made for anyone who calls Benson home, from the barrio to the depot grounds, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the city as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Benson map.
Sources
- Benson, Arizona, Wikipedia
- Benson Railroad Historic District, Wikipedia
- Benson Historic Barrio, Wikipedia
- Apache Powder Historic Residential District, Wikipedia
- Hi Wo Company Grocery, Wikipedia
- Oasis Court, Wikipedia
- Beck House, Wikipedia
- List of historic properties in Benson, Arizona, Wikipedia
- Kartchner Caverns State Park, Wikipedia
