Bluefield, West Virginia Bluefield, West Virginia City of Bluefield Top left: Downtown - Top right: Bluefield High School - Bottom left: Mitchell Stadium Top right: Bluefield High School Official seal of Bluefield, West Virginia Location in Mercer County and the state of West Virginia.
Location in Mercer County and the state of West Virginia.
Bluefield, West Virginia is positioned in West Virginia Bluefield, West Virginia Location in the state of West Virginia State West Virginia Bluefield is a town/city in Mercer County, West Virginia, United States.
It is the core town/city of the Bluefield WV-VA micropolitan area, which has a populace of 107,342.
Bluefield is positioned at 37 15 44 N 81 13 7 W (37.262219, -81.218674) in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia near Bluefield, Virginia.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 8.86 square miles (22.95 km2), all land. The ethnic makeup of the town/city was 73.7% White, 23.0% African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.5% Asian, 0.2% from other competitions, and 2.3% from two or more competitions.
There were 4,643 homeholds of which 26.1% had kids under the age of 18 residing with them, 38.6% were married couples residing together, 16.5% had a female homeholder with no husband present, 4.6% had a male homeholder with no wife present, and 40.3% were non-families.
The median age in the town/city was 43.1 years.
As of the census of 2000, there were 11,451 citizens , 5,038 homeholds, and 3,078 families living in the city.
The ethnic makeup of the town/city was 75.84% White, 22.14% African American, 0.12% Native American, 0.56% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other competitions, and 1.13% from two or more competitions.
There were 5,038 homeholds out of which 24.7% had kids under the age of 18 residing with them, 43.5% were married couples residing together, 13.9% had a female homeholder with no husband present, and 38.9% were non-families.
The history of Bluefield begins in the 18th century, when two families settled in a rugged and remote part of what is now southern West Virginia, and assembled a small village with a mill, a church, a one-room schoolhouse, and a fort for defending the small settlement against invasions by the much larger Shawnee Indian tribe on the banks of the Bluestone River.
The Davidson and Bailey family had to sell a portion of their territory when in 1882, Captain John Fields, of the Norfolk and Western Railway pioneered the region and began building a new barns through the hills of Bluefield.
Around that time, the coal mines that soon opened up in the region around Harman, Bluefield, War, and Pocahontas were known as the Pocahontas Coal Fields; they helped drive the Industrial Revolution in the United States and fuel the American and British navies amid both World Wars.
Like the extremely accelerated expansion San Francisco experienced amid the gold rush, Bluefield became a town/city that sprang up "overnight," and it far outpaced the transit framework available to it at the time.
Bluefield was not a town/city that controlled its own destiny.
Indeed, the expansion and decay of the town/city depended nearly entirely upon Norfolk and Western Railroad which in turn regarded the whims of the global market as a higher before ity than the longevity and prosperity of Bluefield.
When coal tonnage was good and the market for coal was booming, Bluefield was essentially a "Little New York," as it was called in the day.
The town/city also had more automobiles per capita than any other town/city in the country.
Primarily due to the introduction and globalization of other fuel sources, today's Bluefield does not resemble the Bluefield of long past.
Bluefield is now a much quieter town compared to the boom between 1890 and 1960.
In 1889, the town/city of Bluefield was officially incorporated.
The town/city government was always known in those days as being corrupt, inefficient, with drunken brawls and fights breaking out on the floor of City Hall on an nearly everyday basis.
With a strong ethnic community, Bluefield was the site of the 1895 beginning of the Bluefield Colored Institute, the nation's first college with primarily black pupils.
That college is today's Bluefield State College, and the site of a November 21, 1968 bombing.
During the 1920s, the most impressive high-rise in Bluefield history was built, the twelve-story opulent West Virginian Hotel, now the West Virginia Manor and Retirement Home.
In 1924, close-by Graham, Virginia decided to rename itself Bluefield, Virginia to try to unite the two towns, who had been feuding since the civil war.
With the government almost bankrupt, and series of devastating structural fires that swept through the downtown region and almost took down every high rise the town/city had so feverishly built, the town/city was almost destroyed.
The importance of the town/city was so great that Adolf Hitler even put Bluefield on his assumed list of German air raid targets in the United States.
Thomas Edd Mayfield, one of the Mayfield Brothers Bluegrass musicians of West Texas, died of leukemia in a Bluefield hospital in 1958 at the age of thirty-two while he was on tour with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys.
Bluefield High School Bluefield State College Bluefield is a mountain town/city with a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) bordering on humid continental (Dfa/Dfb.) It is characterized by moderately cold, snowy winters and pleasantly warm to hot summers.
Climate data for Bluefield, West Virginia Since 1938 the Chamber of Commerce has given no-charge lemonade when the temperature has surpassed 90 F. The city's motto is "nature's air conditioned city, where the summer spends the winter." was inspired by his time in a Bluefield jail.
The song "Sweet Georgia Brown" was co-written by Maceo Pinkard, a indigenous of Bluefield.
Knight was born in Bluefield.
Bluefield was the home of the Appalachian League (rookie) Bluefield Orioles baseball team until 2010.
The Orioles have had a team in Bluefield since 1958, which was the longest relationship between a parent club and a town in affiliated baseball. The Toronto Blue Jays replaced Baltimore for the 2011 season with the Bluefield Blue Jays.
Bluefield High School has 522 state championships in all sports, which is more than any other AA school in the state.
Also Bluefield rates third in total football state championships with ten.
Bluefield is largely a football town and the rivalry between the Bluefield Beavers and their sister town/city Bluefield, Virginia's Graham G-Men always draws a large crowd at Mitchell Stadium.
Bluefield is also home to the East River Soccer Complex which has five fields and hosts small-town high school and college soccer games.
United States Enumeration Bureau.
"Monthly Averages for Bluefield, WV".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bluefield, West Virginia.
Bluefield, West Virginia travel guide from Wikivoyage Municipalities and communities of Mercer County, West Virginia, United States State of West Virginia
Categories:
Cities in Mercer County, West Virginia - Twin metros/cities - Bluefield, West Virginia - Cities in West Virginia
|