[5] Contributing to Bethany Beach's reputation as a "quiet" place is the presence of Delaware Seashore State Park immediately to the north of the town.

Because Bethany Beach does not sit on a barrier island, residential areas continue some distance to the west of the town's limits.

Bethany Beach is governed by a city council made up of seven resident and non-resident property owners elected to two-year terms.

The council tends to err on the side of tradition in governing the town and seeks to maintain Bethany Beach's "Quiet Resort" atmosphere and reputation.

The fire department serves the entire area south of Indian River Inlet, east of the Assawoman Canal, and north of the Maryland state line at the southern edge of Fenwick Island, Delaware.

It cooperates fully with the fire departments of Dagsboro, Frankford, Millville, Rehoboth Beach, Roxana, and Selbyville, Delaware, and Ocean City, Maryland.

The main east–west road in Bethany Beach is Delaware Route 26 (Garfield Parkway), which provides access from inland towns to the west such as Ocean View, Millville, and Dagsboro.

He envisioned it as analogous to the Chatauqua adult-education summer-camp movement popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and played a key role in selecting the site of what would become Bethany Beach.

The Christian Missionary Society endorsed his idea in 1898 and established a committee to study the matter; under his leadership, it recommended the Delmarva Peninsula as a suitable location for such a settlement, and later selected the empty coastal area east of Ocean View owned by the Ocean View landowner Ezekiel Evans as the specific site for the community.

[34] Also in 1900, the Disciples of Christ formed the Bethany Beach Improvement Company,[36] which raised the money to purchase the land for the new town from Evans.

[40] On July 12, 1901, Bethany Beach's inaugural summer season officially began with a crowd at the incomplete Tabernacle singing a song written especially for the occasion and sung to the tune of "Marching Through Georgia".

[37][39] Twenty-three landowners, mostly from the Pittsburgh area, concerned that the value of their Bethany Beach lots would drop, selected a committee to address the situation.

The committee studied the problem, communicated with the Christian Missionary Society, and in September 1902 organized a meeting in Washington, D.C., which led to lengthy negotiations about putting Bethany Beach on a firm financial footing.

The negotiations dragged on until 1903, when six Pittsburgh-area investors agreed to buy all of the Bethany Beach Improvement Company's stock, selling three shares to a Delaware resident so that there would be at least some local ownership.

[37] The Christian Missionary Society eventually restored its endorsement of Bethany Beach, and summer programs modeled on the Chatauqua movement began in the town,[37] meeting with modest success.

[40] Longtime residents and regular visitors came to refer to Bethany Beach's history prior to the early 1950s as the "Quiet Years".

Despite the plans of the town's founders to build one, no railroad ever came to Bethany Beach[39] because traffic was insufficient to make such a railroad profitable,[38] so visitors typically had to travel by train to Baltimore, Maryland, spend the night there, then travel by boat across the Chesapeake Bay to the Delmarva Peninsula and by train across the peninsula to Rehoboth Beach.

The Ocean View Post Office established a branch in Bethany Beach in 1904,[40] though it appears that a regular mail route including the town was not available until 1922.

The impact of the war on the area increased after the United States entered the war in December 1941: the town was blacked out at night beginning in 1942 to reduce the chance of German submarine attacks on ships offshore, and the beach and boardwalk closed at 9:00 p.m. to make it easier for military personnel to patrol against landings by enemy agents and saboteurs.

Many personnel of the various armed forces were billeted in the town or based nearby, German prisoners of war were held in the area, a radar station was built nearby to the west, and the United States Army built a gunnery control tower south of town to support the Coast Artillery guns at Fort Miles on Cape Henlopen.

Patrol dogs intended for use along the entire United States East Coast were trained just north of Bethany Beach.

[18] In 1952, the first span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened, heralding the end of the Quiet Years and the beginning of accelerated development of the area as a beach resort.

This made the Delaware coast a more popular vacation destination, and the development of real estate in and around Bethany Beach began in earnest.

Destruction was widespread; many of the beachfront structures that had stood since Bethany Beach's early decades were destroyed, including the bowling alley and many of the inns and houses, as were the boardwalk and town pavilion.

Extensive beach erosion occurred, and sand several feet (over a meter) deep buried streets and cars and filled entire rooms in some houses.

[40] The installation of the sculpture was controversial; many residents viewed it as irrelevant to Bethany Beach, where no history of Native American activity has been found.

[31][39] Given its Christian roots and its secular desire to remain a "Quiet Resort", Bethany Beach historically had resisted the sale of alcoholic beverages within its jurisdiction.

[40] Also in that year, Dennis Beach's Chief Little Owl statue, badly damaged by termites, was replaced by a new Native American sculpture created by Peter Toth.

Remnants of Tropical Storm Ida hit the town in November 2009, destroying most of the dunes, leaving cliffs, making the beach significantly narrower, and revealing old jetties.

[54] The Indian River Life Saving Service Station, Poplar Thicket, and the Wilgus Site all are in the vicinity of Bethany Beach and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.