Bethany, WV

Bethany is a Brooke County town in West Virginia, founded around Alexander Campbell’s homestead and post office in 1827. Campbell founded Bethany College in 1840 and laid out the town in 1847. The 2020 census counted 756 residents. Bethany College was the first degree-granting institution in what is now West Virginia, giving the small town an academic history that began before West Virginia became a state. Bethany sits in the northern Panhandle, within the Weirton–Steubenville regional orbit.

Old Main, a National Historic Landmark, rises above the college campus, while the Alexander Campbell Mansion, Old Bethany Church, Pendleton Heights, and other buildings form the Bethany Historic District. The district includes campus buildings, the central business area, and surrounding homes, so the town and college share the same streets. Bethany’s present-day map still follows Campbell’s original pairing of school, church, and settlement. It is a small West Virginia town where a historic liberal-arts campus, a college village, and the road network between Wheeling and Steubenville meet.