Tag: “Appalachia”

1 place found.

1. 

   Bluefield, West Virginia

   Nature's Air-Conditioned City
   
   (Provided by Wikipedia)
   
   The history of Bluefield begins in the 1780s, when two families settled in a rugged and remote part of what is now southern West Virginia, and built 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 land when in 1882, Captain John Fields, of the Norfolk and Western Railroad pioneered the area and began building a new railroad through the hills of Bluefield (named after the chicory flowers in the area that painted the landscape a purplish blue hue during the summer) and nearby Harman, Virginia.
   
   Underneath the feet of the Davidsons and Baileys lie the largest and richest deposit of bituminous coal in the world - the soft burning coal which was ripe for fueling the industrial machines of the developing world.