Benton County, Tennessee

Benton County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Camden
Year Organized: 1835
Square Miles: 395

Court House:

1 East Court Square, Room 102
County Courthouse
Camden, TN 38320-2070

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of David Benton (1779-1860), member of the Third Regiment, Tennessee Militia in the Creek wars, early settler and farmer who was instrumental in establishing the county.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Benton County

Created 1835 from Humphreys County; named in honor of David Benton (1779-1860), member of the Third Regiment, Tennessee Militia in the Creek wars, early settler and farmer who was instrumental in establishing the county.

Benton County was formed in 1835 from Humphreys County
(Private Acts of Tennessee 1835-36, Chapter 30).

The Tennessee General Assembly created Benton County on December 19, 1835, from portions of Humphreys and Henry Counties. Officials organized the county in February 1836 in a small log cabin at the site of a local post office in what is now West Camden. Initially, the county name honored Thomas Hart Benton, a leading Jacksonian Democrat, but in 1852 the state legislature approved an act that retained the original name but honored "David Benton, an old and respected citizen" of the county.

Find more from the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: BENTON COUNTY

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 436 square miles (1,130 km²), of which, 395 square miles (1,023 km²) of it is land and 41 square miles (107 km²) of it (9.48%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Stewart County (northeast)
Houston County (northeast)
Humphreys County (east)
Perry County (southeast)
Decatur County (south)
Carroll County (west)
Henry County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Big Sandy	town	Incorporated Area
- Camden (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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