Just 16 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed and a hundred years before Benton's incorporation as a borough in 1894, two families ventured up Fishing Creek to live by fishing, hunting and farming. They opened a schoolhouse in 1799 in one of their two houses, which moved to various locations until the present high school was established in 1896.

The town was named for Benton Township, established in 1850 in honor of Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who served for thirty years and was defeated in 1850 over the slavery question. Postal service started in 1836 as a delivery station; a post office was established in 1852.

Community growth primarily took place after 1860, coinciding with the growth of the lumber and tanning industries north of town. By 1868, the town consisted of fifty houses, a tavern, a church, a schoolhouse, a post office and a sawmill. For a good description of what Benton was all about in the period before 1870, go here. At this point, it would be good to take a good look at what Benton looked like in 1876, thanks to a map published by G. H. Walker and C. F. Jewett in that year. By 1886, there were sixty or more houses,2 churches, 2 hotels and several stores. The borough population in 1900 was 635, increasing to 719 in 1910.

Built in 1872 on the corner of Main and Market Streets, the "Exchange Hotel" prospered until it burned in the virtually uninsured $300,000 fire of July 4, 1910, along with 38 houses, 48 barns, the post office, bank, People's Department Store, Odd Fellows hall and other commercial businesses. The Rohr McHenry Distilling Company burned in 1911. Three fires in 1913 included an incendiary fire which destroyed the Presbyterian Church, a fire which destroyed the planning mill of R. T. Smith and Son, and one which destroyed a shirt factory and adjacent dwellings. A silk mill, a hotel built in 1886 known as the McHenry House, Hotel Moses van Campen and a pharmacy were later victims of fire.

The Christian Church, dating from 1849, first met on the hill near the present cemetery in a log building built in 1856 and torn down in 1890, the year the present church was built. The Presbyterian Church, erected in 1903 of wood, with brick veneer and a brick and stone buttress, burned in 1913 with rebuilding starting the following fall. Sixteen people formed the Methodist congregation in 1870, with the church building erected in 1872.

Today Benton boasts of the Benton dam ponding two acres of water, built five years after the 1910 fire in order to provide community fire protection. The 19-acre Benton Town Park is a popular summer attraction. A 44 acre recreation area developed in 1975 is the site for the annual Benton rodeo and the "Out Among the Stars" bluegrass festival.