History of Fairmont, West Virginia
Fairmont is a city in Marion County, West Virginia|Marion County, West Virginia, USA. The population was 19,097 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Marion County, West Virginia|Marion County{{GR|6}}. Established in 1820 as Middletown, then in Monongalia County, West Virginia|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".{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
Fairmont is located in the North-Central West Virginia|North-Central region of the state, along West Virginia's I-79 High Tech Corridor, about 18 miles southwest of Morgantown, West Virginia|Morgantown, and about 23 miles northeast of Clarksburg, West Virginia|Clarksburg. 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.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
As of June 2006, Fairmont city council is in the process (depending on votes) of consolidating Fairmont with the unincorporated communities of Marion County, to have a Consolidated city-county|City-County government, the first to do so in West Virginia. This would make Fairmont the 3rd largest city in the state, just behind Charleston, West Virginia|Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia|Huntington. [http://www.timeswv.com/local/local_story_165025051.html]
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 blacklist|blacklisting during the McCarthyism|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 Floyd Abrams and the McCarthy documentary case|famous case about the First Amendment.Floyd Abrams, Speaking Freely, published by Viking Press (2005), Page 153-58
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