Editing Grafton, West Virginia (section)

===20th century===
[[Tygart Dam]] was constructed about 2 miles south of Grafton between 1934 and 1938, by the [[Works Progress Administration]] of the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] administration. President Roosevelt visited the city on a stump tour, and remarked on such projects on October 1, 1936; he gained a [[1936 United States presidential election|landslide re-election]] the following month. Upstream of the dam, [[Tygart Lake State Park]] was designated to preserve recreation areas around the man-made lake. The Tygart Valley River flows through Grafton.

Grafton continued to prosper throughout much of the early 20th century, based on the railroad's importance in both the area and the national economy. But in the early 1950s, the Carr China Plant closed and left hundreds of residents unemployed.  In the late 1950s, Hazel Atlas Glass Plant closed and also left hundreds of residents without jobs.  In 1958, the women of Grafton organized a parade on Main Street to attract jobs for residents of the community.  This parade received national attention. Grafton was the chosen site of a plastic baby toys manufacturer. Because of the residents' efforts, Grafton was given an [[All-America City Award]] by the National Civic League in 1962, the smallest city that year to receive the award.

Although instrumental to the city's early growth and economy, the railroad inhibited its expansion. In the 1920s smoke abatement experts reported that the combination of high hills, low wind velocity, and frequent railroad traffic, created air quality problems for the city and its business district, which was adjacent to the area of intense railroad activity. The resulting smoke from the railroad industry was a chief factor in hindering the growth of the city. Restructuring of the railroads and heavy industry through the late 20th century resulted in the loss of more jobs and, ultimately, population. People moved elsewhere for work.<ref>[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wvtaylor/history.htm "History of Grafton, West Virginia"], Rootsweb</ref>

[[File:B&O Metropolitan at Grafton, July 1970 (27673473985).jpg|thumb|The ''[[Metropolitan Special]]'' at Grafton Station in July 1970]]

[[File:Streetview of Grafton Hotel & Grafton B&O Depot 2023.jpg|thumb|Street view of Grafton Hotel & Grafton B&O Depot in 2023.]]

In the early 1980s, the railroad relocated hundreds of jobs to [[Jacksonville, Florida]], as the [[Chessie System]] aimed to form [[CSX]]. Grafton suffered a severe economic and emotional loss from these changes.

The [[1985 Election day floods]] were notable in Grafton.  Most of the 47 people killed in this incident were in [[Pendleton County, West Virginia|Pendleton]] and [[Grant County, West Virginia|Grant]] counties, according to the [[National Weather Service]].<ref name=dwhite>''West Virginia Gazette'': "Remembering the '85 floods" (D. White) November 4, 2010</ref> Flooding in the Tygart Valley River basin (a tributary to the Monongahela River) set new records for peak discharge at all five of the long-term unregulated gauging stations in the basin. However, the peaks were not as extreme, relative to the previous peaks of record, as those in the [[Cheat River]] and [[South Branch Potomac River]] basins. Recurrence intervals for the peaks equaled or exceeded 50 years at all five of the aforementioned sites in the Tygart basin, and four were in excess of 100 years. Also, at one newly established gauging station, Three Forks Creek near Grafton, the peak discharge, {{convert|12,000|ft3/s}}, was estimated to exceed the 100-year recurrence interval.<ref name=dhcarp>[http://pubs.usgs.gov/wri/1988/4213/report.pdf "FLOODS IN WEST VIRGINIA, VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA, AND MARYLAND, NOVEMBER 1985" (DH Carpenter) USGS WRI report 88-4213 Towson, MD, 1990]</ref>