Musician and scholar Nolan Stolz, who has been doing a lot of good fieldwork on Route 66 history lately, recently posted a video about the nearly unknown Route 66 ghost town of Benonine, Texas.
Benonine was just a mile or so west of the border town of Texola, Oklahoma, and appears to have been defunct even by the 1940s. Virtually no trace of the town remains.
Even Jack Rittenhouse’s seminal “A Guide Book to Highway 66,” published in 1946, doesn’t mention the town. Other Route 66 sources, if they mention Benonine at all, give it only a few sentences.
As Stolz’s video shows, Benonine near the start of the 20th century had a school and a number of businesses, including a restaurant and gas station.
Stolz has been doing some deep dives into Route 66 research for his forthcoming “Route 66 Suite” he’s composing for orchestras. “66 Ghost Towns” will be one of the movements of the composition.
More videos of Stolz’s Route 66 research, including the Pacific Courts and Restaurant in Joseph City, Arizona, and the Wildhorse Prairie Cabins near Kellyville, Oklahoma, can be found here.
Stolz also has set up a Patreon subscription page to help fund his research.
(Screen-capture image from video of a 1939 map that shows Benonine, Texas)
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