“Silver bells, silver bells
It’s Christmastime in the city …”
~“Silver Bells”
~composed by Jay Livingston & Ray Evans
~ 1950
Early Christmas shoppers share in
the hustle and bustle of the season in front of Historic Hotel Bethlehem in historic
downtown Bethlehem, Pennsylvania the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
During the Prohibition in 1922, Charles M. Schwab built the
Historic Hotel Bethlehem as it’s known it today. However, that little spot in
the town of Bethlehem has a history with deep roots.
The Moravians were very dedicated to their mission. Using this spot as a home base, they started “schooling the unschooled” and converting the “heathen” indigenous people. The Moravians were so passionate and dedicated that within 20 years, they had built 50 more buildings and were working on several different industries. All from within the structures they had built.
In the late 18th century, under the first presidency, George Washington, the First House of Bethlehem was converted to the Golden Eagle Hotel. The hotel operated in this incarnation until 1919, when the building started housing convalescing soldiers returning from World War I.
In 1922, Schwab’s fortune was on the rise and he was one of the stars of American Steel. Schwab built the hotel to cater to the clients of the enormous Bethlehem Steel Company and even back then, it featured amenities equivalent to modern day luxuries, such as, a fitness center, a barber shop, shoe shine, and coffee shop.
Nowadays, the Historic Hotel Bethlehem proudly displays its story in its lower lobby's Hall of History. Artifacts from the town’s history (religious settlement to industrial boomtown) such as photographs and printed materials are showcased as well. A 1936 George Gray painting located in the Mural Room depicts the transformation of the culture surrounding the building.
Historic Hotel Bethlehem, a member of Historic Hotels of America since 2002, dates back to 1922.
Bethlehem is known
as The Christmas City. Since that Christmas Eve 1741when a small group of Moravians were singing a hymn with the
stanza “Not Jerusalem, Lowly Bethlehem” Count Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf
christened this little town “Bethlehem.” Since that time Christmas in Bethlehem
has been central to the city’s identity. From the first documented decorated
Christmas tree in America to the efforts of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce
to get Bethlehem nicknamed “Christmas City USA” in 1937, to the current time
when both sides of the river boast Christmas markets filled with artisan craft,
retail and food vendors, Bethlehem is rife with one Christmas celebration after
another.
