In 1741, a small band of Moravians from Germany, led by David Nitschmann and Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf, established a mission community on 500 acres of land purchased from William Allen near where the Monacacy Creek and Lehigh River meet. On Christmas Eve that year, the new Moravian settlement was christened “Bethlehem” in honor of the birthday of Jesus.

That was 275 years ago, and the city kicked off its official anniversary celebration with a formal gala at the Hotel Bethlehem, which stands on the very spot where the first Moravian house was built in 1741. More than 300 people, including city officials, former mayors and business and community leaders, paid $175 each ($300 a couple) to participate in the festivities that included an open-bar cocktail hour, multi-course dinner, short program and dancing to music of the David Leonhardt Band.

The dinner menu included a duet of grilled chicken and filet mignon, served with asparagus and roasted red potatoes. Dessert was a Peep delight. Bethlehem candy company Just Born supplied its iconic Peeps, which sat on top of white chocolate cages filled with white chocolate mousse and surrounded by raspberries.

Proceeds from the gala ticket sales and sponsorships are funding a community celebration on Saturday, June 25 outside the ArtsQuest Center on the SteelStacks campus. It will be a free event open to everyone. During the community event, 27 nominees will be inducted into the first-ever national achievement Bethlehem Hall of Fame.

During the short program before dinner, Bethlehem Mayor Bob Donchez announced the newest quarter-century Legacy Project, which also is funded from gala ticket sales. As part of Bethlehem’s 275th anniversary, the mayor said a proper memorial will be built to the 500 Revolutionary War soldiers who died in hospitals in Bethlehem, and whose bodies were unceremoniously buried in unmarked graves in what is now called Patriot Hill. A small memorial placed there by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1922 is all that marks what those soldiers did and where they lay.

The plan, according to Donchez, is to place a memorial in a prominent location in the Moravian Industrial Quarters along the Monocacy Creek, looking out at Bethlehem’s Patriot Hill, that will tell the story of these men, along with the role of Bethlehem and the Moravians in the American Revolution.

Anniversary committee chair Lynn Collins Cunningham also announced that in celebration not only of the 275th anniversary of the founding and naming of the city, but also the centennial of its incorporation, the committee has commissioned the writing of the third volume of the history of Bethlehem. It will cover the period between 1920 and 2015.

Discussing the 250th Legacy Project – the redevelopment of Sand Island – Donchez reported “today it has been regenerated as a memorial to the future.” As for the city as a whole, he looked back and compared where the city is today.

“Twenty-five years ago there was no ArtsQuest, no SteelStacks, no Sands Casino. Broad Street was closed to traffic, and there was no outside dining.”

Saying 66 different immigrant groups have been drawn to Bethlehem, the mayor called the city “a microcosm of the American experience.” Looking forward he said, “The future of Bethlehem is as bright as the star on top of the mountain.”