The current location of the Artstarts building at 104 S. Van Buren Street has an interesting and varied history. When Williamson County was created out of the southern half of Franklin County in 1839 and Marion was surveyed to create a county seat, the exact dead center of the county was chosen for its location. The property surrounding the newly surveyed square was then owned by William and Bethany Benson who deeded 20 acres to the county for Marion’s creation. That deed was the first entry in the county clerk’s new record book.

Mr. Benson had been a resident of the county since 1817, one year prior to the creation of the State of Illinois. He was the first settler on Poor Prairie which encompassed most of what is now the older part of Marion and became the first constable of the City of Marion. There is speculation that the county’s name of Williamson was derived from William Benson’s first name.

The Benson family occupied a double wide log cabin that used to sit where the Artstarts building now sits today and when the donation of land was made to the county, most of what is now the public square was put out in corn and wheat crops. When the first county commissioners meeting was held in their log cabin in October 1839, Mrs. Benson, being embarrassed by a lack of seating, flagged down a local farmer and purchased large pumpkins as stools for the commissioners to sit on.

In the 1800’s, the log cabin faded away and was replaced by newer residential homes. At the turn of the century, the home was occupied by Amzi White, Marion businessman and son of John H. White, the first Marion citizen to die in battle at Fort Donelson in the Civil War.

In 1924, a residential home in that location was operated as Cash Funeral Home and when Birger gang member Rado Millich was hanged in Paradise Alley in 1927 at the jail across the street his body was hauled to the funeral home for disposition. The funeral home in 1941 was handed off to Gottlieb Frick and became Frick Funeral Home. Frick served as county sheriff from 1930 to 1934 and modified the building to roughly what it looks like today.  In 1953 they dedicated the Memorial Chapel addition to the south side of the building and Frick passed away the same year. In 1955, the building was sold to Jim Wilson, who named the business Wilson-Frick Funeral Home which was later shortened to Wilson Funeral Home. Jim Wilson served as county coroner for many years.

The building in its current state served as Wilson Funeral home until 1993. The building was then occupied by the Salvation Army until 2006. After sitting empty for several years, it was occupied by Artstarts around 2013 and they remain there today in 2018.

(Sourced from local history book, obits and Marion street directories, 8/8/2018)