Culture and history info

The city and Bagnath Temple find mention in the Manaskhand of Shiva Purana, where it is written that the temple and its surrounding city was built by Chandeesh, a servant of the Hindu deity Shiva. According to another Hindu Legend, Sage Markandeya worshipped Lord Shiva here. Lord Shiva blessed sage Markandeya by visiting here in the form of a Tiger. Bageshwar has historically been a part of Kumaon Kingdom. Bageshwar was located adjacent to Kartikeypura, the then capital of Katyuri Kings that ruled over Kumaon in the 7th century. According to historians, Nepalese invader Kranchaldev won the Bageshwar region by defeating Katyuri kings in 1191. He later weakened the Katyuris and kept his local governors to rule the region. These governors later became independent before Chand king Balo Kalyan Chand of Almora won the region from local Khas rulers in 1565. In the 10th century, the Chand kingdom was established by Som Chand. He displaced the Katyuri Kings, called his state Kurmanchal and established its capital in Champawat in Kali Kumaon. In 1568, Kalyan Chand established a permanent capital at Khagmara and called it Almora. In 1791, the Gorkhas of Nepal while expanding their kingdom westwards across Kali River, invaded and overran Almora, the seat of the Kumaon Kingdom and other parts of Kumaon including Bageshwar. The Gorkhas were defeated by the East India Company East India Company in Anglo-Nepalese War in 1814 and were forced to cede Kumaon to the British as part of the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816. The Kumaon region was joined with the eastern half of the Garhwal region and was governed as a chief-commissionership, also known as the Kumaon Province, on the non-regulation system. According to Atkinson's The Himalayan Gazetteer, Bageshwar had a population of 500 in 1886. In 1891, the division was composed of the three districts of Kumaon, Garhwal and the Tarai; but the two districts of Kumaon and the Tarai were subsequently redistributed and renamed after their headquarters, Nainital and Almora. Before the First World War, the British Government did a Survey for a rail link connecting Bageshwar with Tanakpur in 1902. However, the project was stalled by British due to The World War. The Surveys restarted in the 1980s after Indira Gandhi visited Bageshwar. The first motor road arrived in Bageshwar in 1952 from Almora via Garur. Bus services started operating on the Bageshwar-Kapkot motorway in 1955-56. After the 1962 India-China War, an important strategic road connecting Bageshwar with Pithoragarh was completed in 1965. In the early phase of its urban development, the central township of Bageshwar was a group of 9 small mutually tangled group of villages which had three uninhabited and 6 manned village. The Bageshwar State village was formed in 1948 by joining these villages. Bageshwar was declared a town in 1955, under the UP Town Area Act of 1914, and the first Town area committee was constituted in 1957. Bageshwar received the status of a notified area committee in 1962 and municipal Council in 1968. The pumping water supply scheme was introduced in Bageshwar town in 1975. The estimate for water supply was prepared in 1968-69 for a designed population of 6000 persons for the year 1997. In the early Twentieth century dispensary (1906) and Post Office (1909) were established in Bageshwar. A public school started in 1926, which was made junior high school in 1933. After independence by several attempts from local residents, a private high school was opened in 1949 in memory of Victor Mohan Joshi, which became an Inter College in 1967. The first women's primary school started in the 1950s and women's public high school started in 1975. A new Government Degree College was inaugurated in 1974 by the then Chief Minister Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna. After Independence of India in 1947, Bageshwar was a part of the Almora District. Bageshwar had a population of 1740 people according to the 1951 Census. It was part of the Kanda development block, that was later converted into Bageshwar development block. On 15 September 1997 the Bageshwar district was carved out of Almora district by then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and Bageshwar became its Headquarter. On 9 November 2000, Bageshwar came in the Uttarakhand State that was created from the Himalayan and adjoining northwestern districts of Uttar Pradesh.