Bendena is an unincorporated community located southwest of the center of Doniphan County, along highway K-20. It is 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Troy, the county seat, and 15 miles (24 km) north of Atchison.
Bendena has a population of approximately 120.
Bendena was founded in 1886 and was originally named Albers after a local farmer named John Albers. However, this name too closely resembled other city names within the State of Kansas and the United States Postal Service required the name to change when it established the first post office there. The first telegraph operator at the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska railroad station offered the name of his sweetheart for consideration. The name was well received and the community became Bendena.1
1Gray, Patrick Leopoldo (1905). Gray’s Doniphan County History: A Record of the Happenings of Half a Hundred Years. Roycroft Press. p. 56.
