The name
Bethpage comes from the
Quaker Thomas Powell, who named the area after the Biblical town
Bethphage, which was between Jericho and Jerusalem in ancient Israel. Present-day Bethpage was part of the 1695
Bethpage Purchase. An early name for the northern section of present-day Bethpage was
Bedelltown, a name that appeared on maps at least as late as 1906. On maps just before the arrival of the
Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), the name
Bethpage appears for a community now included in both the post office district and school district of the adjacent community of
Farmingdale. In 1841, train service began to
Farmingdale station, near a new settlement less than a mile eastward from what had previously appeared on maps as
Bethpage. Schedules at that time do not mention Bethpage as a stop, but have a notation "late Bethpage". On an 1855 map, The location identified as
Bethpage has shifted slightly southward to include a nearby area now called
Plainedge. Between 1851 and 1854, the LIRR initiated a stop within present-day Bethpage at a
station then called
Jerusalem Station, and on January 29, 1857, a local post office opened, also named
Jerusalem Station. LIRR schedules listed the station also as simply
Jerusalem. Residents succeeded in changing the name of the post office to
Central Park, effective March 1, 1867 (respelled as
Centralpark from 1895 to 1899). The Central Park Fire Company was organized in April 1910, and incorporated in May 1911. In May 1923 the Central Park Water District was created. Following the 1932 opening of nearby
Bethpage State Park, the name of the local post office was changed to Bethpage on October 1, 1936. The LIRR station was also renamed
Bethpage station. The name
Bethpage was, however, already in use by an adjacent community, The
Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Bethpage (NWIRP) started operations in 1942, west of the Grumman site. In August 2015,
a small airplane with engine trouble failed to reach Farmingdale airport, and was redirected to "Bethpage Airport" by the air traffic controller. However, the pilot could not find that airport because it was closed and had buildings on it, and the plane crashed on LIRR tracks.
Swedetown Village In the early 1900s, Bethpage (then called Central Park) was home to a small village of early
Scandinavian immigrants, whose area was north of Cherry Avenue, east of Stewart Avenue, and west of today's Seaford Oyster Bay Expressway. A Scandinavian-American Club of North Central Park formed in 1924, called Central Park North Civic Association, whose social activities and project fundraising helped improve roads, street lighting, water service, and postal service. After officially disbanding in 1959, the clubhouse, located on Stewart Avenue, became Saint Isidoro's Greek Orthodox Church. In August 2021, Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor
Joseph Saladino, with the help of Central Park Historical Society, helped unveil a historical marker celebrating the Scandinavian immigrants, located on the corner of Flamingo Lane and Caffrey Avenue.
Superfund site Bethpage's history as a space and aviation center has left heavy metals, toxic waste, and radioactive byproducts dumped into the surrounding ground and leeching into the water. Bethpage as of 2012 has been declared a class 2
Superfund site. The rate of cancers and birth defects in Bethpage is statistically well above the national average, which many attribute to the polluted soil and ground water. Bethpage residents have taken action by filing a $500 million lawsuit against Grumman. ==Geography==