Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Central Bethlehem Bethlehem, PA

Bethlehem was founded on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1741, by Moravian settlers and named by Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Moravian bishop.

Bethlehem adopted the nickname 'Christmas City USA' in a ceremony on December 7, 1937, and in 1747 it had already become the first American city to feature a decorated Christmas tree.

A giant illuminated Star of Bethlehem shines from the top of South Mountain over the city during the holiday season.

Bethlehem straddles two counties - Northampton and Lehigh - and had a population of 75,781 in the 2020 census, making it the second-largest city in the Lehigh Valley and the seventh-largest in Pennsylvania.

Bethlehem has around 31,000 households, averaging about 2.3 people each, and only about half of its homes are owner-occupied.

Bethlehem was the headquarters of Bethlehem Steel, founded from roots dating to 1857 and, until its dissolution in 2003, one of the world's largest steelmaking and shipbuilding companies.

The company's original Bethlehem plant site has been reborn as SteelStacks, an arts and entertainment district built around the preserved blast furnaces.

Lehigh University was founded in Bethlehem in 1865 by railroad magnate Asa Packer, whose $500,000 gift was then the largest of its kind to an American educational institution.

Moravian University traces its roots to a girls' school founded in the 1740s that moved to Bethlehem in 1749, making the city a center of Moravian education for more than 275 years.

The Moravians' Gemein Haus, completed in 1741, still stands among dozens of remarkably preserved pre-Revolutionary buildings in the city's historic district.