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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Benton (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Benton. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Parishes/Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring parishes/counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northeast corner of their home parish. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next parish to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the parish to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring parishes/counties instead of the parish in which they lived:  their home parish contained property and probate records; the parish to the east contained birth and death records; the parish to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring parishes/counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Benton is located in Bossier Parish and is the Parish Seat.

To see how the shape of Louisiana's parishes may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following parishes adjoin and form the boundaries of Bossier Parish: Lafayette (AR), Miller (AR), Bienville, Caddo, Red River & Webster.

Below are the parishes/counties that are near Benton. For each of these parishes/counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Benton:

  • Bossier Parish     (The home parish of Benton)
  • Caddo Parish
    • The following are listed by their distance from Benton, with the one closest to Benton listed first.
    • Belcher
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Gilliam
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Blanchard
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Mooringsport
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Shreveport
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Black Bayou ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Black Bayou is located in Caddo Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Black Bayou
    • Oil City
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Hosston
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Normandy Village
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • Normandy Village is located in Caddo Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Normandy Village
    • Longwood Village
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Longwood Village is located in Caddo Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Longwood Village
    • Longwood
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Western Hills Village
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Chateau Village
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Chateau Village is located in Caddo Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chateau Village
  • De Soto Parish
  • Webster Parish
    • The following are listed by their distance from Benton, with the one closest to Benton listed first.
    • Cotton Valley
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Sarepta
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Doyline
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Dixie Inn
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Dixie Inn is located in Webster Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dixie Inn
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 266 people
    • Cullen
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Springhill
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Minden
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Sibley
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Yellow Pine
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Shongaloo
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Buckhorn ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Buckhorn is located in Webster Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckhorn
  • Columbia County (AR)
  • Lafayette County (AR)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Benton, with the one closest to Benton listed first.
    • Bradley
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Gin City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Gin City is located in Lafayette County (AR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gin City
    • Walnut Hill
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
  • Miller County (AR)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Benton, with the one closest to Benton listed first.
    • Capps City
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Capps City is located in Miller County (AR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Capps City
    • Doddridge
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
  • Cass County (TX)
  • Harrison County (TX)
  • Panola County (TX)
    • Panola
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Benton, see our Parish-by-Parish Page for Benton.

Cemeteries Near Benton ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Benton.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Benton - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Benton covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Benton, with the one closest to Benton listed first.

  • Benton Community Club Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Macedonia Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Old Red River Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Raymond Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Dickson Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Sibley Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Player Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Carolina Bluff Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Mt. Zion Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Pilkinson Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Prairie Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
  • Dove Dale Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (184 more) ...
    • Cottage Grove Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Light Hill Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • New Egypt Hill Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Benton had a population of 113 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Benton had a population of 2,092 people.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Benton, with the one closest to Benton listed first.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Benton. See our List of 1890's Communities around Benton.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Benton ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 75 newspapers that have been published in the area around Benton.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Benton. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Benton and those printed in the larger area surrounding Benton.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 14 miles [22.5 km]<3> of Benton.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Benton:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Benton, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Benton) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.