Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Fairchance, PA

Fairchance is a borough in south-central Fayette County, Pennsylvania, about seven miles south of Uniontown, the county seat.

Fairchance was incorporated as a borough on March 7, 1889.

Local tradition says Fairchance got its name because travelers from Morgantown, West Virginia, who reached the town by 4 p.m. had a 'fair chance' of making it to Uniontown before sundown; a second account credits ironmaster Fidelio H. Oliphant, who assured a Uniontown bank he had a 'fair chance' of repaying a loan.

Fairchance sits at the western base of Chestnut Ridge, the westernmost major ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in this part of Pennsylvania.

Fairchance's population was 1,890 at the 2020 census, down from 1,975 in 2010 and a peak of 2,174 in 2000.

At the 2000 census Fairchance had 871 households, with an average household size of 2.47 people.

The borough's own Fairchance Borough High School graduated its first class in 1905 but was destroyed by fire on February 12, 1958; the local district later merged into today's Albert Gallatin Area School District, which now serves Fairchance students.

The Mon-Fayette Expressway, Pennsylvania Route 43, passes just west of Fairchance with an exit serving the borough, while PA Route 857 runs through the center of town as Morgantown Street.

Fairchance is the birthplace of Ron Lancaster, the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame quarterback and coach, and of Alfred L. Wilson, a World War II Medal of Honor recipient.

The borough covers about 1.2 square miles, all of it land, at the edge of Pennsylvania's southwestern coal country.