Bethel Center Finds Its Footing

Bethel Center is a renaming of the only African Methodist Episcopal Church that once served its congregation in Oakland, Maryland. The original location of the Bethel A.M.E. Church was on the corner across from the Oakland Cemetery at 5th and High Streets. It was moved in the 1930s to an Amish farm in Pleasant Valley where it served as a blacksmith and buggy repair shop until the summer of 2022.

It has since been safely razed from the Pleasant Valley location and moved to an indoor barn where it will undergo restoration. Thanks to the unusually warm weather, the foundation has been dug and a footer poured at the corner of Maryland Highway and G Streets. This will become the final location for the well-traveled A.M.E. Church.

The restoration work has been graciously funded by the Maryland Historical Trust’s African American Heritage Preservation Program and through a Community Legacy grant. Private donations of both time, materials, and money have also contributed to facilitating the project’s progress.