In the 1870's, Anne Arundel Methodists established Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, South in a wooden building two miles west of Odenton in what is now Camp Meade. The congregation continued to worship there through World War I. Shortly after the war, the Army purchased their land as part of the permanent Camp Meade installation. The Bethel congregation moved to Odenton, and with funds from the sale of their property they erected a neo-Gothic, rusticated concrete block building at the corner of Second Avenue and Watts Avenue (now Waco Avenue and Becknel Avenue). The year 1922 is inscribed on the church bell, and the church was consecrated in 1923. In 1942, the Bethel congregation merged with Nichols Memorial Methodist Protestant Church, which was located beside the Methodist cemetery on Route 175 near the railroad bridge in Odenton. The combined congregation met at the Nichols location. A then recently-formed Lutheran congregation purchased Old Bethel Church and worshipped there until 1957, when they built the present First Evangelical Lutheran Church at the intersection of Odenton Road and Piney Orchard Parkway.

In 1962, The Soroptimist Club of Severn Run (Mabel Whitmore, president) purchased Old Bethel Church from the Lutherans. The former church building served as the Soroptimists meeting place and Odenton's first public library, operated by the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County library system. The library remained there until 1969. The Soroptimist Club of Severn Run generously donated Old Bethel Church to the Odenton Heritage Society in 2001.

Much of the church building is original and unchanged, including the rusticated cast concrete block walls, wooden porch and entrance, and pressed metal ceiling. Interior partitions have been added, and tile flooring has been installed on top of the original wooden floorboards. The belfry, stained glass windows and altar were removed when it became evident that the building would no longer be used as a church; the building presently has clear glass windows.

Photo of Old Bethel Church