Completed in 1850 through a joint effort of local Masons and Methodists, Bethel's Masonic Lodge served as a church, school, and community center, surviving an assault by Federal soldiers in 1862 and a 1954 fire that destroyed most of Bethel's downtown. Its founder and first Worshipful Master of Masonic Chapter, 194 F. & A.M., Elihu Edmundson, also served as Grand Master of the State of Tennessee and held other high offices in the order. Bethel in Giles County, Tennessee, was founded circa 1815 with a store and blacksmith shop, and William R. Brown, known as "Good Billy," built its first church, a log structure, in 1817. In 1900, the Methodists erected a new church a short distance from the original site. At one time Bethel had four stores, a cotton gin, a post office, garage, doctor's office, pharmacy, and school, but after fire destroyed its commercial district on July 3, 1954, the town never rebuilt the district.