Bedford "City"

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 of Bedford County. County officials selected a new location closer to the center of the now-smaller Bedford County and created the village of Liberty in 1782. Liberty was incorporated as 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 became an independent city in 1969. It remained an independent city until reversion to town status on July 1, 2013.

The city was fiscally distressed at the time. The city's budget was balanced by transferring profits from the municipal electricity fund, and only 6% of its remaining land was suitable for new development. The agreement between the city and county for reversion to a town included three planned annexations into the future town. Once Bedford was a town, such annexations would increase the town's tax base without reducing the county's tax base. Reversion to town status resulted in a $15 million increase in state funding for Bedford County.

Reversion eliminated the contract through which the county was paid $6 million per year to operate the city schools. After reversion:²

...the remaining responsibilities of the resulting Town would be public safety services (law enforcement and fire protection); maintenance of public thoroughfares; parks and recreation facilities; solid waste collection; and land development regulation. Other public services that were formerly provided by the City, directly or by contract with other jurisdictions, such as public schools; public health; social services; behavioral health services; jail operations; election administration; building inspections; and certain constitutional offices, will become the responsibilities of Bedford County.

In 2025, the vice-mayor floated a proposal to change the town's name back to Liberty, the name used from 1782 until the 1880's. That would help distinguish it from Bedford County. Public feedback was clearly opposed, and the cost of changing all the signage was not minor. The town council, including the vice-mayor, unanimously rejected the proposal.³

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 Boys and D-Day in 1944

Bedford County

Virginia Cities That Have "Disappeared" - and Why

Bedford Court House (circled) in 1891
Source: Library of Congress, Perspective map of Bedford City, Va., county seat of Bedford Co. (1891)

Links

• Bedford
• Boundary Adjustment
• Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce
• Bedford Main Street
• Bedford Historical Society

References