Editing Bethany Beach, Delaware (section)

===The founding of Bethany Beach===
In 1898, F. D. Powers—a minister at the Vermont Avenue Christian Church (today the [[National City Christian Church]]), a congregation of the [[Disciples of Christ]] in Washington, D.C.—was serving as president of the annual convention of Washington-area Disciples when he suggested that a Christian meeting place be established on the Atlantic coast of the United States. He envisioned it as analogous to the [[Chatauqua]] adult-education summer-camp movement popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and played a key role in selecting the site of what would become Bethany Beach.  The Christian Missionary Society endorsed his idea in 1898 and established a committee to study the matter; under his leadership, it recommended the [[Delmarva Peninsula]] as a suitable location for such a settlement, and later selected the empty coastal area east of Ocean View owned by the Ocean View landowner Ezekiel Evans as the specific site for the community.<ref>{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes|pages=17, 154}}</ref>

In 1900, the Disciples of Christ held a nationwide contest to name the proposed community, the winner to receive an oceanside lot there. A committee of three men from [[Scranton, Pennsylvania|Scranton]], Pennsylvania, was responsible for choosing a name from among the entries; although it considered the names "Wellington" and "Gladmere", it chose the name "Bethany Beach" suggested by H. L. Atkinson of the [[University of Chicago]]. Powers supposedly also suggested the name "Bethany Beach", but the committee received Powers' entry two weeks after Atkinson's and thus Atkinson was deemed the winner.<ref>{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes|page=19}}</ref>
[[File:Bethany Beach Tabernacle.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|The original [[Tabernacle (Methodist)|Tabernacle]] in its early years. It stood from 1903 to 1961, and served as Bethany Beach's [[auditorium]] and religious and cultural center.<ref>{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes|page=23}}</ref>]]
Also in 1900, the Disciples of Christ formed the Bethany Beach Improvement Company,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5837874/bethany_beach_improvement_company/|date=November 17, 1900|work=Denton Journal|title=The Local Department|location=Denton, Maryland|page=3|url-access=subscription |access-date=July 9, 2016|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> which raised the money to purchase the land for the new town from Evans. Marketing the new community aggressively, the company sold 150 lots in Bethany Beach, mostly to families from Washington, D.C., [[Pittsburgh]], Pennsylvania, and Scranton. It laid out streets and began the construction of the [[Tabernacle (Methodist)|Tabernacle]], an octagonal [[auditorium]] which was dedicated on July 24, 1901, while still under construction and would serve as the town's central meeting place and cultural center, hosting both church services and entertainment events. The company also made plans to build cottages on the lots it had sold and to establish a railroad branch line passing through Ocean View and Millville that would connect Bethany Beach with the main line to the west at either [[Dagsboro, Delaware|Dagsboro]] or [[Frankford, Delaware|Frankford]], Delaware,<ref name="Meehan, p. 17">{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes|page=17}}</ref><ref name=morgan20160524>Morgan, Michael, "Not Enough Traffic For a Train to Bethany," ''Delaware Wave'', May 24, 2016, p. 52.</ref> promising that the railroad would begin operations on July 4, 1901;<ref name=history>{{cite web|title=History|url=http://www.bethany-beach.net/history.htm|publisher=Bethany-Beach.net|access-date=July 16, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921053441/http://www.bethany-beach.net/history.htm|archive-date=September 21, 2013}}</ref> however, the 1901 season came and went with no railroad in operation.

A temporary town government began to operate in 1901. This event is celebrated as the founding of Bethany Beach, although the town would not be incorporated for another eight years.<ref name="Meehan, p. 147">{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes|page=147}}</ref>

On July 12, 1901, Bethany Beach's inaugural summer season officially began with a crowd at the incomplete Tabernacle singing a song written especially for the occasion and sung to the tune of "[[Marching Through Georgia]]".<ref name=morgan20160524/><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=yEu4bKkJzOoC&pg=PA147 Morgan, Michael, ''Pirates and Patriots: Tales of the Delaware Coast''], New York: Algora Publishing, 2004, {{ISBN|0-87586-338-8}}, p. 147.</ref>