Bethany, Oklahoma
city in Oklahoma, United States
Bethany is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Bethany has a population of 20,831 at the 2020 census, a 9.3% increase from 2010. The community was founded in 1909 by followers of the Church of the Nazarene from Oklahoma City.
History
Bethany was founded July 28, 1909 as a community where members of the Church of the Nazarene, an evangelical Christian movement that developed from Holiness churches, could practice their religious beliefs without interference by non-members. The town was named after the biblical place of Bethany. The community quickly founded Oklahoma Holiness College (now known as Southern Nazarene University, SNU). Two other institutions were soon established, the Oklahoma Orphanage (now the Children's Center, a medical facility) operated by Mattie Mallory, and the Nazarene Rescue Home for unwed mothers.
Bethany incorporated on August 8, 1910 as a rural town; its economy depended on the surrounding farmlands. It gained a post office on March 11, 1913. With a relatively large population of conservative Nazarenes, the town council soon enacted strict blue laws that banned alcohol, tobacco, gambling, dancing, movies, swearing, and working on Sundays.
“Bethany, Oklahoma” enters the record as city in Oklahoma, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bethany, Oklahoma and city can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Bethany, Oklahoma” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bethany, Oklahoma and city provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1924825. VIAF identifies the subject as 153650906. The Library of Congress control number is n84009174. Authority coordinates are 35.505, -97.639. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2010, 1909 and 1910.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Bethany, Oklahoma” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.