Editing Wheeling, West Virginia (section)

===Post-Civil War growth===
[[File:Wheeling West Virginia 1920 Automobile Blue Book.jpg|thumb|Map of Wheeling in 1920]]
Although Wheeling lost its position as state capital in 1865, it continued to grow. In the late nineteenth century, Wheeling was the new state's prime industrial center. One early nickname (until an 1885 strike) was "Nail City", reflecting the iron manufacture in several mills, which dated from the 1840s. Mills transformed pig iron into sheets that could be cut, and some mills also produced boiler plates, stoves, barrel rings, and/or ornamental ironwork.<ref>Doug Fetherling, Wheeling: An Illustrated History Windsor Publications Inc. 1981) pp. 53-57</ref> Noted businesses of the era included the [[Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company]] (owned by state senator [[Jesse A. Bloch]], who would in 1913 introduce legislation that became the state's Workmen's Compensation Act), and later steel concerns after development of the [[Bessemer process]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ts4gcxT0YeAC&pg=PR9 |title=West Virginia: A History |author1=Otis K. Rice |author2=Stephen W. Brown |date=January 1993 |page=9 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=0813118549 |access-date=July 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180105053239/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ts4gcxT0YeAC&pg=PR9 |archive-date=January 5, 2018 }}</ref> Wheeling Steel Corporation was created in 1920 and grew after a 1927 strike caused J.P. Morgan and other investors to sell National Tube Company, which had been created in 1899, six years after local owners had consolidated five plants in the area as Wheeling Steel & Iron Company.<ref>Fetherling p. 57</ref>

In 1866, Lincoln School opened in Wheeling to serve African American students.<ref name=linc/> Lincoln High School was taught by Laura Grayson-Morison.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ohiocountylibrary.org/wheeling-history/4080|title = Lincoln School: Historical Sketch > Research &#124; Ohio County Public Library &#124; Ohio County Public Library &#124; Wheeling West Virginia &#124; Ohio County WV &#124; Wheeling WV History &#124;}}</ref> A new building for Lincoln High School opened in the early 1940s;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://theclio.com/entry/27123|title = Lincoln High School}}</ref> the school closed with desegregation in 1954.<ref name=linc>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ohiocountylibrary.org/wheeling-history/lincoln-school-wheeling-wv-1943/4070|title=Lincoln School > Research &#124; Ohio County Public Library &#124; Ohio County Public Library &#124; Wheeling West Virginia &#124; Ohio County WV &#124; Wheeling WV History &#124;}}</ref>

Wheeling had considerable associations with the American labor movement. In 1904 it became the first city in the country to refuse a proposed [[Andrew Carnegie]] gift of a free library, because of the industrialist's labor record, especially the notorious [[Homestead Strike]] of 1892. By contrast, cigar tycoon [[Augustus Pollack]] (despite once rousing controversy by a plan to use convict labor) left many bequests to the labor movement, which erected a memorial statue. The city's earliest union was the United Nailers (1860, which later merged into the [[Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers]]), followed by the cigar makers in 1862. The 1877 railroad strike at [[Martinsburg, West Virginia]], reached Wheeling and spread nationwide. In 1897, [[Eugene Debs]], [[Mary Harris Jones|Mother Jones]], and [[Samuel Gompers]] were among the speakers at a national labor convention in Wheeling to discuss a nationwide coal strike.<ref>Fetherling pp. 56, 58-59</ref>

With industry, Wheeling reached its peak of population in 1930. As the city grew, prosperous Wheeling residents built fine houses, especially on [[Wheeling Island]], but slums also expanded.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lp5Li57vz3oC&pg=PR9 |title=West Virginia: A History |author=John Alexander Williams |page=9 |date=August 17, 1984 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=9780393301823 |access-date=July 14, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180105053239/https://books.google.com/books?id=lp5Li57vz3oC&pg=PR9 |archive-date=January 5, 2018 }}</ref> As a result of that growth, an ordinance was passed regulating personal cesspools, including a ban on pipe communications with other homes and businesses unless offensive smells were properly trapped.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3DBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA389 "Laws and Ordinances for the Government of the City of Wheeling, West Virginia"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216212856/https://books.google.com/books?id=3DBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA389&dq |date=February 16, 2017 }}, Wheeling (W. Va.). Intelligencer Publishing Company, 1901. p. 389. Retrieved February 10, 2017</ref>