BETHLEHEM, TEXAS (Upshur County). Bethlehem is on Farm Road 1650 eleven miles southeast of Gilmer in southeastern Upshur County. The site was settled in the early 1850s. A school began operating there around 1900. In the mid-1930s the community had a church, a school, a store, a cemetery, and a number of scattered houses. During the 1950s Bethlehem and nearby Omega formed an independent school district with a high school. The school and church were later moved a mile south to New Bethlehem, and in 1958 the school was consolidated with the East Mountain school district. In the mid-1960s Bethlehem had a church, a cemetery, a store, and a few houses. In 1990 the church and cemetery were still maintained, and Bethlehem reported a population of twenty-five. The population grew to seventy-five in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Doyal T. Loyd, History of Upshur County (Waco: Texian Press, 1987).

Christopher Long