Named for famed Missouri senator, Thomas Hart Benton, the Benton Club was founded by forty

charter members who plunked down $500 apiece in 1887. On May 14th, 2012, we celebrate the 125th
annual meeting of this remarkable institution, which, in the words of its founders, 

was established to “furnish facilities for bringing together gentlemen in commercial, manufacturing, 

and professional pursuits in the city of St. Joseph.”

The initial focus of the club, as stated in the preamble, stressed education, a place for 

“discussion of all general education and scientific subjects, and the reading of papers, magazines,

periodicals and books of scientific, literary and financial character,” with the goal to 

“stimulate and develop the mental and moral faculties of its members.”

Such lofty ambitions are to be applauded in any era.

There is another side to this venerable institution, however, that is equally important, and that is

its capacity for generating fun, a sense of jollity and good times. Blessed with a talented and 

dedicated staff, our club reigns unexcelled in the list of downtown clubs to be found anywhere 

in the major cities of the American Midwest.
	
Many among us must pay a special homage to this lovely, funky, idiosyncratic edifice, whose walls

have seen and heard so much. How many of us might even owe the fact of our very existence 

to the good feelings initiated on these premises that later were successfully culminated in 

the privacy of the home.

O wondrous house!  O mighty domicile!
O mythical rampart to a more meaningful world!