This empty, unpaved thoroughfare is Benson’s Fourth Street in the 1920s. It was the town’s principal business block. In the foreground of the photo stands a false-fronted building at the corner of Huachuca and Fourth Street. The building would later become a Benson landmark.

William Morgan Zeek purchased the lot in June 1880 when the Southern Pacific Railroad auctioned land in the new Benson town. Zeek, who served as the town’s postmaster from 1892 to 1896, began constructing a small building on the lot that would house a barbershop and bathhouse.

On October 1, 1896, tragedy struck Benson. Throughout the day, a black, forbidding sky shrouded Benson while rain poured over the Whetstone Mountains. The Arizona Daily Citizen reported, “The gorges and gullies, arroyos and canyons leading to the San Pedro River in the direction of the town suddenly became filled with fast traveling deep, angry streams…” And during the afternoon, a wall of water crashed out of the west “carrying with it in its mad course, everything movable.”

The Wells Fargo office became dislodged from its foundation and smashed into the Southern Pacific Depot. Then another building that housed baled hay struck the Depot and destroyed it.

However, the most significant damage occurred when houses were hurled into the flood’s torrent and then thrust violently into the raging San Pedro River. In one of the houses were Zeek’s 26-year-old wife, Nellie, their two young sons, a houseguest (23-year-old Annie Eliza Ashburn) and her two young daughters.

One account says Zeek, who already had lost three children in untimely deaths, witnessed his home hurtling through town on floodwaters. Everyone in the house was killed and days passed before their bodies were found.

After the flood, Zeek decided to move his barbershop to the back of the lot and constructed the building shown in the photo. He opened The Corner Store in partnership with a man named Friedman and sold fruit, candy, cigars and tobacco. Later tenants included the local telephone company, Benson Bottling Works, C.F. Moss Pharmacy and Benson Home and Ranch Supply.

By the 1920s, Zeek’s building housed M.H. Allen Retail Store. The sign on the side of the store advertised that the store also sold Victrolas and toilet articles, which causes one to wonder if windup record players were more profitable in small towns than tooth powder.

Zeek lived out his life in Benson, passing away in 1928. The building still stands today; its appearance largely unaltered. Unfortunately, the sidewalk canopy is gone, display windows have been refitted and the double entry doors replaced by a large single door.

The tattered building next to the store was Benson’s post office. Leonard D. Redfield, who came to Benson with his family in 1883, succeeded Zeek as postmaster. Redfield, who was also Benson’s mayor at one point, was appointed to postmaster in 1896 at 26 years old. He served for more than 40 years and retired as the longest tenured postmaster in the United States.

Other 19th century structures front Benson’s Fourth Street, but many have been remodeled to appease contemporary tastes without regard for the historic significance of this once important 1880 railroad town.

— W. Lane Rogers. Photo courtesy author.