A Dispute Over D Street
The Aberdeen Herald criticizes landholder Samuel Benn for attempting to bypass his contractual obligations to open streets.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The proposition suggested by Samuel Benn for the opening of D street is unworthy of a man of his means. By good authority, the Herald is informed that embodied in the original contract between Samuel Benn and Eugene France, on file in the auditor's office, there is a clause binding Benn to open such streets through his unsurveyed 'triangle' as continuations of such streets as France should lay out in his plat. Mr. France has stated that he had such a contract and was anxious to have D street opened, but singularly enough Mr. Benn has lost all recollection of such an agreement. The acceptance of Mr. Benn's proposition exempts his property from the lawful street assessment and causes a pull from the city treasury of between three and four hundred dollars which it will never get back.
“The acceptance of Mr. Benn's proposition exempts his property from the lawful street assessment and causes a pull from the city treasury.”
This is a classic 'booster-era' conflict between private land wealth and public infrastructure. The struggle to hold developers accountable for street connectivity remains a central tension in Aberdeen's urban development.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.