Two identical wood-frame one-room buildings stood on this corner in the 1890s, both facing east: Bethel Freewill Baptist Church on the right and Bethel School on the left. Bethel School served farming families in the area, and local residents who taught there included Sallie Kirkland Brooks, W.L. Gregory, J. Clyde Drury, and Pleas Corbin. The school was abandoned in 1928 when Bethel, Gentry, and Coppell consolidated into one school, now Pinkerton Elementary School. Bethel Baptist Church remained in use until it burned in 1915, and its presence probably influenced the naming of the Bethel area.