BENTLEY, IOWA

The town of Bentley began in the late 1800’s, located on the eastern edge of Norwalk Township. The rails of the Chicago Great Western Railroad were laid in 1902. The Samuel Ross family arrived about the same time. They built a hotel and livery stable. The town grew rapidly and had a lumberyard (Fullerton Lumber Company’s largest at the time), a hardware store, two saloons, bank, elevator, blacksmith shop, three grocery stores, post office, schoolhouse and church. The Railroad was the lifeblood of the town. There was a deport and trains stopped regularly for both passengers and freight. It cost less then a dollar to go from Bentley to Council Bluffs round trip. A stockyard was built along the tracts and farmers drove their cattle to the yards for loading onto the cars, destination Omaha or Chicago.

Saturday nights were usually pretty exciting. Bentley had two dance pavilions, one was above one of the grocery stores. Good orchestras of the time played there which attracted people from as far away as Lincoln, Nebraska to come and dance. The nights usually ended with a fight or two around the saloons to add to the excitement.

Bentley had a doctor and dentist for a while. But alas, Doctor A. L. Besore, moved to McClelland because that town had a drug store.
Fires took their toll during the years. The school burned twice, being rebuilt each time the last time made of brick in 1941. One of the stores burned and so did the lumberyard. There wasn’t much chance of stopping a fire once it started in those old wooden buildings due to the inadequate water but the town only had a central pump.

When trucks began dominating railroads for cargo hauling. Bentley began to decline too. Businesses closed one by one and the residents moved out. The bank closed in 1933 when hundreds of other banks across the nation did. It never reopened. The last grocery store and post office operated by Mr. and Mrs. P. V. Churchill closed in 1965. The remaining saloon gave up shortly thereafter. Only Ballards Service Station remains to serve the public on Road G-30 which passes through town.

Bentley School only went through tenth grade in its prime. To finish high school the students traveled to Underwood by school bus. In 1967 the Schools consolidated and Bentley only served students to the sixth grade. In 1964 school was discontinued and Mrs. Frieda Wahle and Mrs. Marguerite Karrer were its last teachers with Mrs. Ruby O’Doniel as cook and custodian. About four years later, Charles Turner moved a wholesale furniture business from Council Bluffs into the school building. That lasted until 1973 after which the building was vacant. Gary James purchased it in 1976 and is now remodeling into four apartments.

Bentley’s population dipped to a mere 24 persons, but began to pick up in 1972 with a new housing development along the old railroad right-of-way and along the road going north of town. The railroad tracks were taken out in1971, having served the community for almost seventy years. Bentley’s population is now approximately 65 persons. Residents feel their town is close enough to Interstate 80 for convenient commuting to Council Bluffs and Omaha and they still enjoy the pleasures of small town county living.