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=== World War II and after === Lynchburg's factories again worked 24 hours daily during [[World War II]]. In 1955, both [[General Electric]] and [[Babcock & Wilcox]] built high technology factories in the area.<ref name="lynchburgva.gov" /> Lynchburg lost its bid to gain access to an interstate highway. In the late 1950s, interested citizens, including Virginia Senator [[Mosby Perrow Jr.|Mosby G. Perrow Jr.]], asked the federal government to change its long-planned route for the interstate highway, now known as I-64, between [[Clifton Forge, Virginia|Clifton Forge]] and Richmond.<ref>"Additional Interstate Road Systems Approved," ''Petersburg-Colonial Heights Progress-Index,'' April 27, 1958, p. 20.</ref> Since the 1940s, maps of the federal interstate highway system showed a proposed northern route, bypassing the manufacturing centers at Lynchburg and Roanoke. But federal officials assured Virginia that the state would decide the route.<ref>Routes of the Recommended Interregional Highway System, ca. 1943.</ref> Although initially favoring that northern route, Virginia's State Highway Commission eventually supported a southern route from Richmond via US-360 and US-460, which connected Lynchburg and Roanoke via US-220 from Roanoke to Clifton Forge, then continued west following US-60 into West Virginia.<ref>''Minutes of the Meeting of the State Highway Commission of Virginia, Held in Richmond September 11, 1945,'' page 12.</ref> However, in July 1961, Governor [[J. Lindsay Almond]] and US Secretary of Commerce Luther Hodges announced that the route would not be changed.<ref>"Opposition to Northern Route Dropped," ''Danville Bee,'' July 6, 1961, p. 3</ref> Lynchburg was left as the only city with a population in excess of 50,000 (at the time) that was not served by an interstate.<ref>''Richmond Times-Dispatch,'' June 13, 1999.</ref> The [[Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded]] (now known as the Central Virginia Training School), was established outside Lynchburg in [[Madison Heights, Virginia|Madison Heights]]. For several decades throughout the mid-20th century, the state of Virginia authorized compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for the purpose of [[eugenics]]. The operations were carried out at the institution. An estimated 8,300 Virginians were relocated to Lynchburg and sterilized there, making the city a "dumping ground" of sorts for the feeble-minded, poor, blind, epileptic, and those otherwise seen as genetically "unfit".<ref>[http://www.poormagazine.com/public_html/columns/column_91.html "A Simple Act of Mothering"], ''Poor Magazine/PNN'' {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822122024/http://www.poormagazine.com/public_html/columns/column_91.html |date=August 22, 2009 }}</ref> [[Carrie Buck]] challenged the state sterilization, but it was finally upheld by the [[United States Supreme Court]] in ''[[Buck v. Bell]]''. She was classified as "feeble-minded" and sterilized while a patient at the Virginia State Colony. Sterilizations were carried out for 35 years until 1972, when the operations were halted. Later in the late 1970s, the [[American Civil Liberties Union]] filed a [[class-action lawsuit]] against the state of Virginia on behalf of the sterilization victims. In the settlement, victims received formal apologies from the state and counseling if they chose, but the judiciary denied requests for the state to pay for reverse sterilization operations. In 1994, Buck's sterilization and litigation were featured as a television drama, ''Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story''.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} The [[Manic Street Preachers]] address the issue in their song "Virginia State Epileptic Colony" on their 2009 album ''[[Journal for Plague Lovers]]''.
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