Just north of Montgomery County, twenty miles north of Souderton, the country’s oldest bookshop continues to offer incredible reading material for everyone.
The Moravian Book Shop, the official bookstore of Moravian University in nearby Bethlehem, was founded in 1745. Still in operation to this day, it is the oldest bookstore in the United States in continuous use, and the second oldest in the entire world.
“Four years after the founding of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Bishop Augustus Spangenberg of the Moravian Church asked Samuel Powell, the innkeeper of the Church’s Crown Inn on the south side of the Lehigh River, to open and operate a bookstore,” author Steve Berry wrote online.
“The ‘Bethelhemer Bücher Shop’ (Bethlehem Book Shop) was a place for churchgoers, missionaries, and students, to purchase devotional and liturgical materials.”
The shop is still centrally located at at 428 Main Street, offering books, gifts, and college essentials to locals and visitors for nearly 300 years.
“For nearly three centuries, book lovers near and far have looked to the Moravian Book Shop for its curated selection of books and iconic Moravian- and Bethlehem-themed gifts,” the bookshop said on its website.
Learn more about the bookshop at Moravian Book Shop.
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Founded in 1745 and still at the heart of Bethlehem, the Moravian Book Shop is more than a bookstore, it’s a living piece of history, a community gathering place, and a second home for generations who’ve passed through its doors.
Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on MONTCO Today in January 2023.
