Editing Summersville, West Virginia (section)

==History==
Summersville was laid out in 1824.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kenny|first=Hamill|title=West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning, Including the Nomenclature of the Streams and Mountains|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015009099824;view=1up;seq=636;size=125|year=1945|publisher=The Place Name Press|location=Piedmont, WV|page=612}}</ref> The city was named for Lewis Summers, a local judge who had introduced the bill to create Nicholas County.<ref>{{cite book|last=Capace|first=Nancy|title=Encyclopedia of West Virginia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K30UKW0aewgC&pg=PA192|year=1999|publisher=North American Book Dist LLC|isbn=978-0-403-09843-9|page=192}}</ref>

Summersville was home to both Union and Confederate encampments during the Civil War. The town was mostly burned down by the Confederate spy [[Nancy Hart Douglas]] during the war. The town was rebuilt by 1884.<ref name="summersvillecvb.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.summersvillecvb.com/summersville_history.html |title=Summersville_History |access-date=2020-06-13 |archive-date=2017-04-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170401112526/http://www.summersvillecvb.com/summersville_history.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1914, Nicholas County High School was established, then located downtown in the [[Old Main (Nicholas County High School)|"Old Main"]]. More buildings were built on the campus to house the growing student body until a new building north of town was finished in 1978.

Construction on [[Summersville Lake|Summersville Dam]] began in 1960 and was finished and dedicated by President [[Lyndon Baines Johnson]] in 1966.<ref name="summersvillecvb.com"/>

Since the upgrade of [[U.S. Route 19]] through Summersville from a two lane highway to a four lane highway, the city has become the economic center of Nicholas County. The road is commonly used by northern travelers as a shortcut to the [[Southern United States|south]].

Summersville is home to the annual Potato Festival.

On June 23, 2016 flooding impacted Summersville. This resulted in Summersville Middle School being demolished and relocated to a modular setting after flood waters damaged the school. Ground was broken on a new campus for Summersville Middle School, Nicholas County High School, and the Nicholas County Career and Technical Center on June 2, 2020.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200702181028/https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nicholas-county-schools-hold-groundbreaking-for-new-schools/ar-BB14TonF ]</ref>