Editing Bluefield, Virginia (section)

==History==
Bluefield has not always borne the name Bluefield. The town developed around a small post office named "Pin Hook" in the 1860s, named for a small creek that ran through the community.<ref>Hotchkiss, Jedidiah, in ''The Virginias: A Mining, Industrial, and Scientific Journal,'' published in Staunton, Virginia, 1881, Vol. II</ref> For a brief time it was known as the community of Harman, named after a Civil War hero from the area who had been shot during the [[Battle of Cloyd's Mountain]] in [[Pulaski County, Virginia]].

Later, after [[coal]] was discovered and a company was formed to build a railroad to the [[Pocahontas Coalfield]]s, the community's name was changed again to "Graham" to honor Col. Thomas Graham, a [[Philadelphia]] capitalist. The town was first chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia as the town of Graham in 1884. The [[Norfolk and Western Railway|Norfolk and Western]] railroad chose [[Bluefield, West Virginia]] over Graham as the place to build its regional headquarters and main docking yards for the Pocahontas region. As a result, Bluefield, West Virginia grew at a much faster rate than did Graham.

Graham, Virginia operated under that name until a referendum on June 10, 1924. By a margin of 287 to 223, voters in Graham approved changing the name of the 5,000 member town to Bluefield, Virginia to match the larger (22,000) West Virginia city.<ref>"Graham and Bluefield To Combine, Name Changed", ''Roanoke (VA) Times'', June 11, 1924, p.2</ref>  The name change was celebrated in a mock marriage ceremony held in the city park between officials of Bluefield, Virginia, and Bluefield, West Virginia, to celebrate the renaming of Graham. Its community had borders then that are roughly the same as the downtown area alongside the railroad of today's Bluefield, Virginia.

Graham continued to hope for development as a major city in the region; it tried to attract a [[steel]] refining industry alongside the railyards. The [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s caused development in the region to come to a halt. The current Bluefield did not start to expand beyond the downtown area until the 1950s, when it annexed the small town of [[West Graham, Virginia]] to the west. It also began to develop land in the more open rural foothills to the south of the city.

As the largest town in [[Tazewell County, Virginia]], Bluefield has expanded since the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium. After a series of devastating floods in the early 21st century, the town has relocated its town council chambers and police department from the [[flood]]-prone historic downtown area to the southernmost point in the city at the foot of East River Mountain. The area has been developed with a [[Wal-Mart]], the headquarters of [[First Community Bancshares|First Community Bank]], [[strip mall]]s, and a medical center operating along [[U.S. Route 460]].

Bluefield's most prominent residents are [[Bill Dudley]], an NFL Hall of Famer; New York Giants RB [[Ahmad Bradshaw]]; and the widow of actor [[Lorne Greene]], who previously lived in a mansion atop a hill overlooking the [[Walter McDonald Sanders House|Sanders house]]. This is considered one of the most significant historic homes in the city.

The [[Walter McDonald Sanders House]] and [[Alexander St. Clair House]] are listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>