FAIRMONT – For generations Fairmont and Marion County were bit players in an ongoing money tale of three distinct towns and three distinct regions.
With the above-mentioned town and region mired, as it were, in a not-so-happy narrative of economic stagnation.
Just 20 minutes to the north on Interstate 79, Morgantown and Monongalia County enjoyed consistent prosperity as the home to West Virginia University and a major medical hub.
That same driving time to the south on that same highway, Clarksburg and Harrison County most definitely reaped dividends – with retail, the FBI and a burgeoning aviation industry taking up residence.
Over the course of 2025, Fairmont and Marion both jumped to recast their roles along the I-79 corridor.
The city made moves to redevelop its Beltline district – while at the same time, the county set about marketing itself for a 21st century recast.
A Wharf District down the road?
The Beltline is a once-bustling mixed-use business district behind 12th Street that flourished through the 1960s, when the city was on the clock 24 hours a day.
Factories were stacked along the strip like LEGOs.
On Virginia Avenue, one street up, rows of duplexes were constructed for those workers and their families.
There was the B&O Railroad, restaurants, a brewery and East-West Stadium: a masonry marvel built in the 1930s for football and track for the county’s then-eight high schools with money from FDR’s Works Progress Administration.
Today, only a handful of factories and businesses, plus East-West Stadium and the houses, remain – but the city began in earnest to capitalize on that revered history with renewed construction and commerce.
Call it a paraphrased riff on “Field of Dreams,” the mystical baseball movie. That is, build it, and the people, and the merchants, will arrive in turn.
The former Fairmont Box Factory building was knocked down to open up a new leg of the West-Fork Rail Trail, with a state Department of Environmental Protection grant picking up the bulk of that price tag.
Plans over the spring were unveiled for “Momentum Adventure Park,” featuring a climbing wall and Tony Hawk-styled skateboard run that just might bring in new restaurants and office space in response, City Manager Travis Blosser said, if the expanse set to open in October 2026 lives up to its name.
Focus groups and mock-ups of traffic-calming measures are already in the recipe, Blosser said.
A happy ending to the tale, he said, would be a Fairmont version of Morgantown’s successful reimagining of its once-dilapidated Wharf District in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“The potential is almost limitless,” the city manager said. “If the people want it.”
Campaign for the county
Leah Smith, meanwhile, is all about telling stories.
After all, the director of the Marion County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is a former newspaper reporter.
It’s easier than one might think, she said, to get Marion County on the record as a tourist destination.
For example, there are the cascading waterfalls and hiking afforded by aptly named Valley Falls State Park, she said, which is a 1,145-acre postcard jewel nestled right in the heart of the county.
Add that to the Colonial-steeped history of Prickett’s State Park, which is just outside Fairmont’s East Side city limits.
Marion County also gets to claim Johnnie Johnson, the Chuck Berry collaborator who grew up on Pennsylvania Avenue in Fairmont.
Johnson is said to be the inspiration for Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
The boogie-woogie piano player and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member gave the duck-walking Berry his first gig in St. Louis way back on New Year’s Eve 1952.
It was Johnson, coincidentally, who put Fairmont’s Palatine Park on the map as a music venue. A summer concert series with national artists now draws respectable crowds from across the U.S. to the city and county.
Meanwhile, at Smith’s direction, Marion’s CVB will launch a new marketing campaign for 2026.
“When people get to know us, they like us,” she said.
That’s the spirit(s)
Over the fall, the city lifted its glass to the PODA – the private outdoor designated area that allows outdoor imbibing for patrons of select establishments along Adams Street downtown and just across the river on Merchant Street.
City council officially approved the “Friendly City Spirits District” last spring, to capitalize on popular gatherings including The Feast of Seven Fishes Festival, held every December on Monroe Street, just off Adams.
PODAs, meanwhile, are already in place in Morgantown, Clarksburg, Wheeling and Charleston.
In December, Rivesville’s Short Story Brewing and Fairmont State University popped a top on “Falcon Crest” a craft beer created and named in honor of the school.
The beer, which is a light lager and Oktoberfest blend, is now available at select Fairmont State events and the brewery.
“We’re lifelong Marion Countians,” Short Story’s co-owner Aaron Rote said, “and we liked the idea of doing something like this for our local university.”
Call it suds and social marketing, Fairmont State President Mike Davis observed.
“It’s a unique way to raise a glass to everything that makes Fairmont State such a great place,” he said.
Thanks, D.D. …
Fairmont and Marion County lost a leading light in June when D.D. Meighen, the clergyman and community activist died after a lengthy illness.
Meighen spent nearly six decades in service, pastoring at several area churches while launching and contributing to a number of social causes across the city and county.
In his later years, he became known as the founder and on-air host of TV 19, a cable access channel that aired meetings of Fairmont City Council and the Marion County Commission, along with roundtables, parades, concerts and other gatherings of note.
The minister long toted both a reporter’s notebook and the Good Book.
Fresh out of divinity school in the early 1970s, he moved in with two needy families in Marshall and Fayette counties, as a way to spotlight the malaise of generational poverty across the Mountain State and Appalachia — while knocking back some cruel stereotypes along the way.
“No one ‘chooses’ to live like that,” he said.
Meighen, who lived a year in each household, worked outside jobs to help put food on the table in exchange for chronicling each family’s toil and struggle via his microphone and camera lens.
The minister would have turned 81 on New Year’s Eve, and often delivered the gospel of simply not being afraid to try new things – no matter the date on your birth certificate.
“Don’t limit yourself by saying you’re ‘too old,’” he’d preach.
The county Chamber of Commerce will honor his legacy when it presents its inaugural “D.D. Meighen Humanity in Action” award to a deserving citizen during its annual dinner this spring.
