Bluefield grew up fast in the 1890s as a Norfolk & Western Railway division point and the gateway to the Pocahontas Coalfield. For a few decades around 1900 it was one of the wealthiest cities in West Virginia — a fact still legible in the unexpectedly grand downtown. The federally listed Commercial Historic District covers about thirty buildings around Princeton Avenue and Federal Street, including the eleven-storey West Virginian Manor (formerly the West Virginian Hotel), the Italian Renaissance courthouse, and a clutch of 1920s commercial blocks in brick and terra-cotta.
Most of it is in workable but tired condition — Bluefield is no longer rich and a number of upper floors are vacant — but a slow walk through it is the best introduction to what the town once was. Pick up a free walking-tour pamphlet at the Craft Memorial Library on the corner of Federal and Bland.