Mount Bethel

Mount Bethel, on Farm Road 999 eleven miles southwest of Carthage in southern Panola County, was settled before the Civil War. The first school in the area had opened by 1855. In 1908 the Mount Bethel school became a district in the county school system. During the mid-1930s the community had a church, a school, a sawmill, and a number of houses. The school was consolidated with that of Gary around 1940, and by the mid-1960s only a church, a cemetery, and a few scattered dwellings remained in the area. During the 1990s Mount Bethel was a dispersed rural community; the reported population in 2000 was sixty-two.