Fairmont , nicknamed the "Friendly City", is a city of 19,097 people (as of 2000) in West Virginia. It was established in 1820 as Middletown, and changed in 1843 to Fairmont, short for "Fair Mountain". Mary Lou Retton — a gold-medalist gymnast in the 1984 Olympics, who was highly popular around the country and particularly in West Virginia — is originally from Fairmont.
Fairmont is part of the High-Technology Corridor along I-79, home to companies such as Allegheny Energy, the FBI Identification Facility, and numerous software-oriented businesses.