Editing Bluefield, West Virginia (section)

===20th century===
[[File:Edgewood near Mountain View, Bluefield.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Upper Oakhurst Historic District]] was primarily developed during the 1920s]]
During the 1920s, the twelve-story West Virginian Hotel was built. It has been adapted and in the 21st century is operated as the West Virginia Manor and Retirement Home. In 1924, nearby Graham, Virginia decided to rename itself as [[Bluefield, Virginia|Bluefield]] to try to unite the two towns, which had been feuding since the civil war. Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician [[John Forbes Nash]] was born in Bluefield in 1928. George Marshall Palmer, the well-renowned Purdue University professor of aeronautics and director of the AerospaceSciences Laboratory at Purdue, lead of the invention of the Boeing wind tunnel and a pioneer in the aerodynamic and structural testing of skyscrapers<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/jconline/obituary.aspx?pid=191945140|title = George Marshall Palmer Obituary (1921 - 2019) Journal & Courier|website = [[Legacy.com]]}}</ref> was born in Bluefield in 1921.

The [[Great Depression]] was particularly damaging to Bluefield. With the government nearly bankrupt, after a series of devastating structural fires swept through the downtown area, the city was nearly destroyed. It was not until the outbreak of World War II that coal production revived. The strategic importance of the city was so great that [[Adolf Hitler]] put Bluefield on his reputed list of German air raid targets in the United States. Air raid practice drills were common in the city during this time.

In 1964 Helen Compton opened the now-demolished Shamrock Bar, the oldest gay bar in WV.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Milam |first=Bradley |date=April 2010 |title=Gay West Virginia: Community Formation and the Forging of a Gay Appalachian Identity, 1963-1979 |url=http://clgbthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/NestlePrize2011_Milam_GayWestVirginia.pdf |access-date=February 1, 2025 |website=clgbthistory.org}}</ref>

The [[Interstate Highway System]] was constructed through [[East River Mountain Tunnel|East River Mountain]] on December 20, 1974; for the first time automobile traffic could reach the city without crossing the top of the mountain. The dependence on the railroads waned and restructuring changed the industry. Bluefield lost jobs and population as a result. Its [[Amtrak]] station closed in the 1980s. [[Mercer Mall]], the area's major shopping mall, opened in 1980.