Bethel College

Bethel's Civil War years left a story. The college closed in 1861, and both armies used its buildings as barracks. Union troops reportedly seized a large refracting telescope, mistaking it for the barrel of a brass cannon, and later returned it. Classes resumed in 1869. In 1872 President W. W. Hendrix led the move from McLemoresville to McKenzie, where two railroads crossed, and a two-and-a-half-story brick building went up on land bought from James M. McKenzie. The college later grew into Bethel University, with satellite campuses in Jackson and Paris.

What the plaque says

Bethel College Founded as Bethel Seminary at McLemoresville in 1842 by the West Tennessee Synod, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, with Rev. Ruben Burrow principal. Incorporated in 1847, it became Bethel College in 1850 and moved here in 1872. It was presented to the General Assembly, Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1919.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Patsy Cline Crash Site Memorial — 21 mi
  An engraved rock off Mt. Carmel Road near Camden marking where a small plane carrying Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins went down on March 5, 1963.
• Big Cypress Tree State Park — 21 mi
  A small floodplain park on the Middle Fork of the Obion River, named for a bald cypress that stood 175 feet tall before lightning destroyed it in 1976.
• Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge — 26 mi
  A 51,000-acre refuge along Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River, created in 1945 for migratory birds, with a visitor center in Springville and a drowned Archaic site nearby.
• Paris Landing State Park — 31 mi
  A Kentucky Lake state park on the site of a Tennessee River steamboat landing, created after the 1944 TVA dam drowned a sulphur-spring resort.

More markers nearby

• Site of B-17 Crash — 4.3 mi
• Camp Tyson — 9.9 mi
• Hale Junior High School — 10 mi
• Isaac R. Hawkins — 13 mi