Fairmont

North-central West Virginia river city known for Italian-American pepperoni rolls and frontier history.

Fairmont sits at the confluence of the Monongahela, Tygart Valley, and West Fork rivers in the rolling hills of north-central West Virginia. It is the county seat of Marion County and a small, pleasant town of about 20,000 people with an outsized contribution to American food history.

The area is known for its Italian-American heritage — the pepperoni roll, West Virginia's official state food, was invented here by Italian immigrant Giuseppe Argiro in 1927. Country Club Bakery still makes them to the original recipe, and they are exactly as good as anything that has been made since. Prickett's Fort State Park, a few kilometres north of town, is a full-scale reconstruction of an 18th-century frontier fort and a genuinely good state park. The Mon River Rail-Trail follows the Monongahela through town and connects to a longer network of river trails that cyclists find worthwhile.

Guide

Getting There

Fairmont is on Interstate 79 in north-central West Virginia, roughly 80 kilometres south of Morgantown and 130 kilometres north of Charleston. It is a natural stop on the I-79 corridor between Pittsburgh (about 2.5 hours north) and Charleston.

There is no scheduled air service to Fairmont. The nearest significant airports are Morgantown Municipal (about 50 kilometres north) and Pittsburgh International (about 2 hours north). Amtrak does not serve Fairmont. By road is the only practical way to arrive.

Guide

Things to Do

Fairmont's highlights are modest but genuine: a frontier fort, a river trail, an interesting folklife centre, and the town that invented the pepperoni roll. It rewards a half-day of unhurried exploration.