The Amerindians applied the term, “Towamensing” to the entire frontier area above Blue Mountain, which while a valued hunting territory was considered less favorable to Indian settlements.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 0.26 square miles (0.67 km2), all of it land.

[4] Beaver Meadows began as a recognizable and describable landmar, a meadow where beaver dams dotted the landscape, along a well-known Amerindian Trail, known as the "Warriors' Path",[6] and later as well-known as the trail used by Moravian Missionaries traveling between Berwick and Bethlehem, then became known as a toll gate/rest stop along the Lehigh and Susquehanna Turnpike, a bridle trail and wagon road chartered in 1804 from Jean's Run near the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in the hamlet and township of Lausanne about nine miles south on the other side of Broad Mountain.

In the 1790s, a large tract of land was registered in the name of tbdl and a few farm houses dotted the valley until in 1812, anthracite coal was discovered in the vicinity of Junedale,[6] a bedroom suburb neighborhood a 1.33 miles (2.14 km)[7] west of Beaver Meadows proper.

In 1804, business interests desiring to ship timber to energy-hungry settlements raised money for a wagon road that could support timber sledges in winter snows, and the Lehigh and Susquehanna Turnpike was chartered, which is now closely followed by Pennsylvania Route 93 through the borough from over Broad Mountain at Nesquehoning, leading northwest 4 miles (6 km) to Hazleton and southeast 9 miles (14 km) to U.S. Route 209 in Nesquehoning.

In 1800, Lausanne was created to provide local government for what is essentially all of present-day Carbon County, Pennsylvania; the eventual townships of East Penn, Lausanne, Mahoning, Banks, Towamensing, Lower Towamensing and Penn Forest; Pennsylvania townships being the most rural of organized municipal governments under the commonwealth constitution.

[8] In 1812, the secrets of burning anthracite were mostly yet to be discovered, revealed, and promoted (widely publicized) by Josiah White and Erskine Hazard but blacksmiths were several decades into knowing how to use it as an auxiliary fuel to complement bituminous or charcoal in forge fires, so by 1813 a modest pit mine was opened to provide coal for Berwick and Bloomington.

By the end of 1820, the new Lehigh Canal, still rough and unfinished, nonetheless enabled a record 365 long-tons to be shipped to Philadelphia.

By 1823, steady shipments allowed self-funding and the canal was being re-engineered and a gradual conversion begun into a system with two-way locks; its success in providing the affordable fuel to meet the young nation's energy demands, the Erie Canal opening, followed by the news of railroad events in Britain in 1825 began whole chains of events spurring industrial production and railroads.

Room Run Railroad was occupying space assumed free by the Beaver Meadows planners assumptions.

In 1830, operating managers Josiah White and Erskine Hazard of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N Co.) opened new mines, now freed of immediate or further improvement needs of the Lehigh Canal or the Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Railroad, in the area of present-day Nesquehoning and building a two-mile funicular railway called the Room Run or Rhume Run Railroad to increase volume shipped by the company.

At one point, both companies put armed men into the field, but an amicable settlement was reached but for a rate dispute to break out.

The earliest settlement in Banks Township [of 1886] was made in that portion which was in 1897 set off to form the borough of Beaver Meadow.

The township was contained within the territory of Lausanne until January, 1842, when it was separately organized, being named in honor of Judge Banks, then on the bench of Northampton county, of which Carbon formed a part until 1843.