Benld, IL

Benld is a Macoupin County city in the southwest corner of Cahokia Township, part of the Metro-East region that reaches toward St. Louis. Established in 1903, it grew with the coal industry and with immigrant families who gave the town a strong Italian and Croatian presence. Illinois Route 138 and Interstate 55 place Benld within the larger central Illinois road network, but the older mining map still shows up in the town's parks, family names, and local traditions.

Benld's strangest claim arrived from the sky. On September 29, 1938, a meteorite tore through a garage and struck a parked car, leaving a story that still sends people to the Field Museum in Chicago to see the specimen and the unusual chain of damage. Back home, Benld City Park hosts Italian-American Days, Croatian gatherings, music, food, and summer events under its pavilion. The nearby Illinois Coal Museum in Gillespie adds another piece of the area's mining story. Benld brings together a coal-town past, two strong immigrant traditions, and a meteorite that made a very small city part of the national museum circuit.