Submitted
Benson, Arizona has many unique features. Not only is it the home of Kartchner Caverns State Park State Park, but it is also the gateway to Cochise County and also home to fourteen RV parks with over 1,100 RV spaces.
Benson is a small town with a population just under 5,000 and is just a short forty-five minutes from Tucson located right on Interstate 10 at the junction of highways 80 and 90 south. This is why many of the RV travelers like to base themselves in Benson. You can drive in an hour or less to all the great attractions in the area. Tombstone is the closest attraction — just a twenty-minute drive south on Highway 80 — with some great historic attractions to see such as the OK Corral and the Tombstone Courthouse State Park. Bisbee is another great place to visit. The Queen Mine tour is a very memorable visit where you ride on a small train and get sent into the old mine that was dug in 1916. Your guide will tell you how they used to drill and blast to retrieve the copper ore. Drive just another 30 minutes from Bisbee to Douglas to see the historic Gadsden Hotel with the largest Tiffany-stained glass desert scene window in the world. There are so many historic and natural sites to visit in Cochise County you could spend weeks here and still not see it all.
Benson, Arizona mural
Benson has its own great attractions to see such as all the historic murals around town. There are over 45 murals in different locations all around Benson. Go to the Benson Visitor Center located at 249 E. 4th Street in downtown Benson and you can get information on all the local murals that artist Doug Quarles has painted around Benson. Doug always hides secret images in his paintings — look for the little penguin in the Bisbee Mule wagon painting and the hidden elephant and giraffe in cattle drive scene.
Another thing to do in the Visitor Center is to operate their "G" scale model railroad around 29 m (96 ft) of track inside the building. They have an actual AAR control stand replica that allows you to control the speed and direction, just like a real diesel-electric locomotive. There is even a small camera mounted on the front of the model locomotive with a monitor hung in front of the control stand the gives the feeling that you are actually controlling a real locomotive. The scene is completed with a train horn and bell. The center also has small scale model desert scenes in the corners that have bobcats hummingbirds and other desert-dwelling creatures you can see as you operate the train.
The whole scene was made possible by a grant from the Union Pacific Foundation. If you want to see real trains you can do that, too. Benson gets about thirty Union Pacific freight trains per day with some that are as much as two miles long. Benson is also a stop on AMTRAK's Sunset Limited, which runs from Los Angeles to New Orleans six days a week. It has been stopping in Benson since it started in 1883. Benson is a great place to park your RV while visiting southern Arizona. Come "Hang Out in Benson". When in Benson, stop in at the beautiful Train Depot/ Visitor Center at 249 E. 4th street or call them at 520-586-4293. For more information, you can go to the website at www.bensonvisitorcenter.com.
