Editing Fairmount, Indiana (section)

== History ==
The Fairmount area was settled in the 1830s mostly by [[Religious Society of Friends|Quakers]] from [[North Carolina]]. The town was laid out in 1850 and named for [[Fairmount Park]] in [[Philadelphia]];<ref>{{cite book |last=Shouse |first=Cathy Duling |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b_MnHqUqgDcC&pg=PA7 |title=Fairmount |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-7385-8401-0 |page=7}}</ref> it was formally incorporated in 1870.

After a large deposit of natural gas was found in 1887, Fairmount became part of the [[Indiana Gas Boom]] and a center of the [[glass production|glass industry]] for the rest of the 19th century. Shortly after the depletion of the [[natural gas|gas]] in 1900 the automobile industry set up factories in the nearby large cities, and Fairmount became a bedroom community, restoring some of its lost prosperity.

In the 1940s, [[James Dean]] lived with an aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on a farm north of Fairmount. He attended Fairmount High School, graduating in 1949. After his death in 1955, Dean was buried in Park Cemetery.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About |url=https://www.fairmount-in.com/about |accessdate=June 4, 2023 |publisher=Town of Fairmount, Indiana}}</ref> In 1996, a small Memorial Park north of the town's business district was dedicated in his memory with a bronze bust by Hollywood artist Kenneth Kendall.

During the prosperity of the 1960s, Fairmount enjoyed a time of building with a new town hall, water works, post office and elementary school. At the end of the decade the local school district merged with a neighboring one, forming the [[Madison County, Indiana|Madison]]-[[Grant County, Indiana|Grant]] [[Madison-Grant United School Corporation|united school district]]. A new high school was built for this district, and Fairmount High School became a middle school. When a new junior high school was opened in 1986, the Fairmount High School building was permanently closed.

The [[Baldwin Addition Historic District]], [[Fairmount Commercial Historic District]], and [[J.W. Patterson House]] are listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a|dateform=mdy}}</ref>