the Town of Bedford is midway between Lynchburg and Roanoke
Source: Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, US Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat State Mosaics
the Town of Bedford is midway between Lynchburg and Roanoke
Source: Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, US Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat State Mosaics
When Campbell County was created in 1781, New London was no longer suitable for the county seat. Local officials selected a new location closer to the center of the now-smaller Bedford County and esablished the village of Liberty. It became a town in 1839.
A fire in 1884 started in a store at the southeast corner of Bridge Street and Railroad Avenue. When it finished burning the next day, all but two buildings in Liberty had been leveled. Reconstruction with new brick buildings led to renaming the town Bedford City in 1890.1
Bedford planned roads for expanding its size after the 1884 fire
Source: Library of Congress, Perspective map of Bedford City, Va., county seat of Bedford Co. (1891)
Beford was an independent city until it reverted to town status on July 1, 2013.
though the City of Bedford became part of Bedford County in 2013, six years later an online mapping system for the US Army Corps of Engineers continued to show it as an independent city
Source: US Army Corps of Engineers, National Inventory of Dams
Bedford Court House (circled) in 1891
Source: Library of Congress, Perspective map of Bedford City, Va., county seat of Bedford Co. (1891)