Starring…...

Bethlehem , Pennsylvania

This city on the Lehigh River is called “ Christmas City ”…..so our staff here at Arabella & Co . decided to make it a Christmas “star”!

The 81-foot electric Star of Bethlehem on South Mountain

It was Christmas Eve, 1741 when Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf of Saxony , Germany led his small band of Moravians along the banks of the Lehigh River to settle in this spot they named Bethlehem after the place where Christ was born.

The Moravians were a Czech Protestant sect reborn in Saxony before emigrating to America . They became missionaries to the Indians.

The Moravian influence is still seen today….

The Central Moravian Church	Moravian Book Store
Moravian College at night

Bethlehem lays across two counties ( Northampton and Lehigh) and, in 1762, became home to the first waterworks in America to pump water for public usage. It was also the site of a hospital for Continental soldiers during the Revolutionary War.

Nicolaus Ludiwg Zinzendorf

The city, along with its neighbors Allentown and Easton form an urban industrial complex. It all began with the opening of the Lehigh Canal in 1829 and the founding of what would later become the giant of the steel industry, Bethlehem Steel Corporation. When that behemoth breathed its last in 1995, the area became more diversified.

...an old remembered place!
Bethlehem when steel was king...	Bethlehem Steel today with no fire in her belly.

The State Theatre in neighboring Easton is the area’s most beautiful theater and now serves as the region’s performing arts center. It was originally constructed in 1873 as the Northampton National Bank but was later redesigned as a theater. The State Theater was the last tenant before architect William Lee decided to make it “a palace for every man” in 1925. When the era of elaborate boxes and fancy dress theater parties was gone, it was on the docket to be razed. A group of concerned citizens gathered to save it for us.