car Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Bethlehem has a long historical relationship with the celebration of Christmas. The city was christened as Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1741 by Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Moravian bishop. In 1747, Bethlehem was the first U.S. city to feature a decorated Christmas tree.^[6] On December 7, 1937, at a grand ceremony during the Great Depression, the city adopted the nickname Christmas City USA in a large ceremony.^[7] It is one of several Lehigh Valley locations, including Egypt, Emmaus, Jordan Creek, and Nazareth whose names were inspired by locations in the Bible.^[8] There are four sections to the city: central Bethlehem, the south side, the east side, and the west side. Each of these sections blossomed at different times in the city's development and each contains areas recognized under the National Register of Historic Places. Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, formerly the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, runs through Bethlehem heading east to Easton and across the Delaware River to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Reading Line runs through Bethlehem and west to Allentown and Reading. Bethlehem lies in the geographic center of the Lehigh Valley, a metropolitan region of 731 sq mi (1,890 km²) with a population of 861,899 people as of the 2020 census that is Pennsylvania's third-most populous metropolitan area and the 68th-most populated metropolitan area in the U.S. Smaller than Allentown but larger than Easton, Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley's second-most populous city. Bethlehem borders Allentown to its west and is 48 miles (77 km) north of Philadelphia and 72 miles (116 km) west of New York City. Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781.^[5] Among its total population as of 2020, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19,343 were in Lehigh County. It is Pennsylvania's seventh-most populous city. The city is located along the Lehigh River, a 109-mile-long (175 km) tributary of the Delaware River.

About Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Prior to European settlements, the areas around present-day Bethlehem and its surrounding locales along the Delaware River and its tributaries in eastern Pennsylvania were inhabited by various indigenous peoples, including the Algonquian-speaking Lenape, which had three main divisions, known by the dialects, the Unami, Unalachtigo, and Munsee. They traded with the Dutch and then British colonialists in the Mid-Atlantic region in present-day Connecticut, Delaware, Long Island, Maryland, New Jersey, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley in New York, and other regions in Pennsylvania. On April 2, 1741, William Allen, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant and political figure, who later founded the city of Allentown, deeded 500 acres along the banks of the Monocacy Creek and Lehigh River to the Moravian Church. On Christmas Eve of that year, David Nitschmann and Nicolaus Zinzendorf, leading a small group of Moravians, founded the mission community of Bethlehem at the confluence of the Monocacy and Lehigh rivers. They established missionary communities among the Native Americans and unchurched German-speaking Christians and named the settlement after the Biblical town Bethlehem of Judea, said to be the birthplace of Jesus. "Count Zinzendorf said, 'Brothers, how more fittingly could we call our new home than to name it in honor of the spot where the event we now commemorate took place. We will call this place Bethlehem.' And so was Bethlehem named after the birthplace of the Man of Peace." Bethlehem was started as a typical Moravian Settlement Congregation, where the Church owned all the property. Until the 1850s, officially only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to lease land plots in Bethlehem. But a member of a group of families who were Huguenots also settled in Bethlehem. In the late 1700s, Bethlehem established grist and saw mills, known as Calvin's Mills. The historic Brethren's House, Sisters' House, Widows' House, and Gemeinhaus (Congregation House), with the Old Chapel, are remnants of this period of communal living. The Moravians ministered to the regional Lenape Native Americans through their mission in the area, and to others further east in the New York colony. In historic Bethlehem's God's Acre cemetery, converted Lenape were buried alongside Moravians. In 1762, Bethlehem built the first waterworks in America to pump water for public use. In the autumn of 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, many patriots fled from Philadelphia to Bethlehem and the surrounding area as the British Army advanced from the east. The Marquis de Lafayette recovered from an injury received at the Battle of Brandywine in Bethlehem, and several of the most prominent members of the Continental Congress fled north to Bethlehem before the congress eventually reconvened in Lancaster. Before, during, and after the American Revolution, Bethlehem was visited by George Washington and his wife Martha, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the Marquis de Lafayette. On September 22, 1777, fourteen members of the Second Continental Congress signed the Moravian Sun Inn register in Bethlehem and stayed there overnight. George Washington stored his personal effects at the farm of James Burnside in Bethlehem; as of 1998[update], this site is operated as a historical museum known as James Burnside Plantation. In 1845, Bethlehem was a prosperous village that was incorporated into a free borough in the County of Northampton. After the Unity Synod of 1848, Bethlehem became the headquarters of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in North America. On March 27, 1900, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem presented the United States debut of German Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor in the city's Central Moravian Church. Bethlehem was one of the four leading Moravian communities in the Northeastern United States; Emmaus, Lititz, and Nazareth, each in Pennsylvania, were the three others. In 1865, after the end of the Civil War, the Borough of South Bethlehem was formed. In 1886, the Borough of West Bethlehem in Lehigh County was formed. In 1901 the Borough of Northampton Heights was incorporated. Starting in 1904 the borough of Bethlehem began a concerted effort to merge with it's neighboring municipalities. In 1904 Bethlehem absorbed West Bethlehem followed shortly after in 1905 by Hottlesville. South Bethlehem would attempt to resist merger and incorporated themselves as their own city in 1913, however, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania struck down their incorporation as unconstitutional in 1915 and in 1917 South Bethlehem would be annexed. After the merger with South Bethlehem the new consolidated City of Bethlehem was incorporated. Bethlehem Steel executive Archibald Johnston was elected the new city's first mayor. Northampton Heights would be incorporated into the city in 1920 after significant local resistance and a failed proposed merger between Northampton Heights and Hellertown to make a rival city. With the annexation of the Villages of Hottlesville, Macada, Altonah and Shimersville the city would reach its present borders.