How Did Bennett Become Bombers?

When Bennett, Iowa, celebrates its quasquicentennial this Friday and Saturday, a lot of folks will be looking back in history.

Before I traveled to Bennett to talk to Pam Hartwig and Judy Glaser for today's Ramblin' column in The Gazette, I came across the community's fascinating centennial history book published in 1984. Written by graduate Verl Lekwa, who now lives in Columbus Junction and was a past subject of Ramblin' (March 7, 2005, about his "windshield" rating of Iowa's 1,181 towns on the 1999 IDOT map), this book is one of the most comprehensive I've ever seen.

But, try as I might, I haven't been able to learn why the athletic teams chose the name "Bombers" as their mascot. Other than the illiteration of B and B, as in Bennet Bombers, I  haven't been able to solve this riddle on my own.

Anyone out there know why?

In the meantime, Bennett is one of those classic Iowa small towns that lived and died by the railroad, which arrived in 1884 and pulled out in 1943. It was the railroad line that prompted Bennett to grow where it is, about nine miles east of Tipton. The railroad bypassed the nearby town  of Inman, prompting a migration of people from one to the other. The formation of Bennett also resulted in moving the 56-by-32-foot Wesley Chapel from about five miles southwest of town at a cost of $700. It was worth it, since the church was valued at $3,500 at the time.

Fire became the scourge of the town, destroying the opera house in 1928 and the school in 1943.

The opera house was never rebuilt, but a unique open air pavilion was erected on its foundation in 1930. It included a small band shell on one end and the large wooden dance floor with a back-supporting bench all the way around it. These pavilions, apparently popular in the day because of their lower costs had one drawback -- Iowa weather. It seems Bennett's 50th anniversary celebration in 1934 had to be moved to a tavern in New Liberty because of rain.

But, the outdoor pavilion survived for decades "for dances, free movies, basketball practice in the absence of a gymnasium, roller skating, broom hockey using roller skates, running of races, and underneath, a place free from adults where younsters could fantasize and enjoy a forbidden cigarette."   

Today, Bennett has survived better than many small towns by still hanging on to its school which was rebuilt in 1949. It was a high school through 2005 and now houses kindergarten through sixth-grade students.

As folks in Bennett still say -- an all-school reunion is part of this weekend's quasquicentennial celebration -- "Once a Bomber, always a Bomber."

The sesquicentennial button, in fact, features three planes flying in the sky over a line drawing of historical Bennet.

But, Bombers? I still don't know why.