Erastus Benson
Erastus A. Benson (1854-1932) was a banker, investor and land speculator in Omaha, Nebraska. Born and raised in Iowa, after graduating from the University of Iowa Benson speculated in land around Omaha. After investing in early business ventures in the phonograph and the Kinetoscope, Benson staged an unsuccessful bid to become the mayor of Omaha. In addition to being one of the inaugural members of the influential National Phonograph Association, the former town of Benson, Nebraska was named after him.
Erastus Benson was born February 10, 1854, and completed his schooling in Iowa. He later attended both Wesleyan College and the University of Iowa. After moving to Omaha 1886, he acquired a number of properties in and around Omaha. Throughout his life, Benson was a respected member of the business community in Omaha, with memberships in the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and the Real Estate Exchange.
Through a company he owned called the Omaha Abstract and Trust Company, Benson accumulated a great deal of land around Omaha. In 1887 Erastus Benson purchased approximately 900 acres (3.6 km2) of farm land approximately nine miles northwest of Omaha from John Creighton, an important businessman and philanthropist in the city. Benson Place, a suburb of Omaha, was platted on March 4, 1887. Benson's application to run a streetcar line connecting the suburb with Omaha was approved the same day. Benson attracted buyers by hiring Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones to graze herds of buffalo along Military Road.
In the late 1890s, Benson was a central figure in the founding the first of the regional companies associated with the North American Phonograph Company called the Chicago Central Phonograph Company, along with Alfred O. Tate and Thomas Lombard. He later began the Nebraska Phonograph Company, and was president of that company. As president of the company Benson had an exclusive deal with Edison, leading the company to dominate phonograph sales throughout the Midwest for several years. In that capacity he also discovered the young Leon Douglas, who was a self-educated boy telephone operator who at the age of 21 invented one of the first workable patents for a coin-operated phonograph. Douglas sold the patent to Benson.
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