In the 1870s, Anne Arundel Methodists established Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church in a wooden building two miles west of Odenton in what is now Fort Meade. The congregation continued to worship there through WWI. 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 in 1923 they erected, a neo-Gothic, rusticated concrete block church building. Located adjacent to the Historical Center on Becknel Avenue, the Old Bethel Church continued to serve as a place of worship until 1957.
In 1962, the Soroptimist International of Severn Run bought the building, and it served as Odenton’s first
public library from 1962 to 1969. The Soroptimist International of Severn Run donated the building to the Odenton Heritage Society (OHS) in 2001. OHS has since worked to preserve the and maintain building with an active church congregation.