Fairmont

Population of Fairmont: 19097

Fairmont is a city in Marion County, West Virginia, USA. The population was 19,097 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Marion County. Established in 1820 as Middletown, then in Monongalia County, it was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1843 as Fairmont, a contraction of "Fair Mountain". Fairmont is nicknamed "The Friendly City" and is also touted as "The Home of the Original Pepperoni Roll". Father's day originated in Fairmont as well.

Fairmont is located in the North-Central region of the state, along West Virginia's I-79 High Tech Corridor, about 18 miles southwest of Morgantown. Fairmont's National White Collar Crime Center provides nationwide support to law enforcement agencies involved in prevention, investigation, and prosecution of economic and high-tech crime. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation Facility, governed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, houses more than 150 full-time employees and more than 20 in-house partners and contractors.

Fairmont State University, established in 1865, is located in Fairmont. The former head of the art department of the school, Luella Mundel, was the subject of a documentary called American Inquisition by Helen Whitney. Mundel was the victim of blacklisting during the McCarthy era, and the documentary showed how the negative effects of that era reached even smalltown West Virginia. This documentary was the subject of a very famous case about the First Amendment.

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