Bensenville, Illinois
village in DuPage and Cook Counties, Illinois, United States of America
Bensenville is a village located near O'Hare International Airport in DuPage County, Illinois, with a portion of the town in Cook County. As of the 2020 census, the village population was 18,813.
First known as Tioga, it was formally established as Bensenville in 1873 along the Milwaukee Road (now Canadian Pacific) right-of-way. The community is named after Bensen, Germany, a village in the municipality of Sudwalde. A post office was established in 1873, but because there was an existing "Benson", the suffix "ville" was added.
The Edge Ice Arena is located in Bensenville, former home of the Chicago Steel junior ice hockey team and practices for the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL).
The Churchville School in Bensenville is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History
The Barker-Karpis Gang used a house on May Street to hide kidnap victims William Hamm Jr. in 1933 and Edward Bremer in 1934, who they had kidnapped from Saint Paul, Minnesota.
In 2007, homes and businesses were acquired by the City of Chicago for its O'Hare Modernization Program.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bensenville, Illinois” as village in DuPage and Cook Counties, Illinois, United States of America. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as village in DuPage and Cook Counties, Illinois, United States of America. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q277017. VIAF identifies the subject as 131392977. The Library of Congress control number is n83227846. Authority coordinates are 41.955, -87.940. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1873, 1933 and 1934.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bensenville, Illinois”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bensenville, Illinois primary sources, Bensenville, Illinois archive and Bensenville research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bensenville, Illinois”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bensenville, Illinois” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.