The European-American history of Bluefield began in the 18th century, when the Davidson and Bailey families settled in a rugged and remote part of what is now southern West Virginia.

In 1882, the descendants of the Davidson and Bailey families sold a portion of their land, when Captain John Fields of the Norfolk and Western Railway pioneered the area and began building a new railroad through the hills of Bluefield.

The city is traditionally thought to be named after the chicory flowers in the area, which give the fields a purplish blue hue during the summer.

Research has shown that this settlement, also known as Higginbotham's Summit in the 1880s, was probably named for the coal fields that were developed in the area of the Bluestone River.

[citation needed] Beneath the land of the Davidsons and Baileys lay the largest and richest deposit of bituminous coal in the world.

President Frederick Kimball of the Norfolk and Western Railway described this as the "most spectacular find on the continent and indeed perhaps of the entire planet.

"[citation needed] The coal seam had been mentioned much earlier in Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, but it was not mined until 1882.

In the late 19th century, the Norfolk and Western Railway Company selected Bluefield as the site for a repair center and a major division point, which greatly stimulated the town's growth.

As with the extremely accelerated growth of San Francisco during the gold rush, Bluefield became a city that seemed to spring up "overnight."

Urban sprawl and blight were common complaints in the early days, as workers crowded into aging housing.

Bluefield headquartered the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency who initially worked train crimes but became famous strike breakers and were prominent figures in the Coal Wars, including the Battle of Matewan.

In 1924, nearby Graham, Virginia decided to rename itself as Bluefield to try to unite the two towns, which had been feuding since the civil war.

With the government nearly bankrupt, after a series of devastating structural fires swept through the downtown area, the city was nearly destroyed.

The strategic importance of the city was so great that Adolf Hitler put Bluefield on his reputed list of German air raid targets in the United States.

Jazz musician Louis Jordan's song "Salt Pork, W.Va." was inspired by his time in a Bluefield jail.

Lex Luger won the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship in Bluefield in a televised match on May 22, 1989, defeating Michael Hayes.

Bluefield was the hometown of fictional character Rita Stapleton Bauer on the CBS soap Guiding Light.

Bluefield ranks second (tied with now-closed Ceredo-Kenova) in total football state championships with 11, behind national powerhouse Parkersburg High School (16).

Bluefield High School won the West Virginia AA State Championship in boys basketball in 1995, 1996, 2013 and 2014.

The Southern West Virginia King's Warriors of the USL PDL began to play their home games at the East River Soccer Complex in 2014 before dissolving in 2017.

[23] Bluefield is also the home of the Rough and Rowdy Brawl, an amateur boxing tournament owned by Barstool Sports and broadcast on pay per view via its website.

Into the 1960s the Norfolk and Western Railroad operated trains from the Mid-West to the metropolitan Norfolk-Newport News, Virginia area, and Bluefield City was a stop.

General Aviation service is provided at Mercer County Airport, located off State Highway 123 between Bluefield and Princeton.