Not long after the Beatles released their first studio album, Please Please Me, Beatles guitarist George Harrison spent two weeks in Franklin County visiting his sister, Louise Caldwell, who had recently moved to Benton. While in Southern Illinois, Harrison played several impromptu gigs with local band The Four Vests, including a show at a VFW hall and a birthday party at a neighborhood bocce ball club.

While Beatlemania was beginning to take hold in England, most of America at the time had little knowledge of the group. Local radio station WFRX began playing several Beatles hits while Harrison visited the area, making it one of the first American radio stations to play Beatles songs.

Louise Caldwell’s home in Benton, where Harrison stayed, was nearly demolished in the mid-1990s but saved from the wrecking ball and still stands today at 113 McCann Street.

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Read more about George Harrison’s visit to Southern Illinois in the Illinois Times