Biohazard Cleanup Near West Fairmount Fairmount, IL

Fairmount is a village in Vance Township, Vermilion County, and is part of the Danville, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Railroad engineer Josiah Hunt reportedly used inside information about the coming of the Great Western Railroad to buy 40 acres of land along the new route and found the town on it.

The town was originally named Salina, but the name was changed because another Illinois town was already called Saline, and early settler Francis Dougherty is said to have selected the name Fairmount.

Fairmount was incorporated in 1863, and it remains the only village in Vance Township.

Coal mining was attempted east of Fairmount but proved impractical because of water in the mines.

After Jacob C. Sandusky discovered an outcropping of limestone on his farm, quarries were established near Fairmount that at one time employed about 400 people.

The 2020 census counted 612 people in Fairmount, and the village's population has stayed within the 500-to-700 range ever since it was first counted at 503 in 1880.

The 2000 census counted 640 people in Fairmount living in 264 households.

Fairmount covers just 0.32 square miles, all land, yet its 2020 population density was roughly 1,900 people per square mile.

Norfolk Southern Railway operates the railroad line that still passes through Fairmount on its way from Danville to Decatur.