in the late 1860s, Fairview developed a one-street commercial district
along the old territorial road running through the middle of town. In
1869 a Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution was started in Fairview.
Other stores and businesses followed, so that by 1900 Fairview's downtown
could boast of a public library, several general stores, a furniture
store, a creamery, a harness shop, a butcher shop, and two hotels. In
1881 a Presbyterian mission school was funded, with a chapel being erected
in 1894. A good public school system was established in the 1890s; 497
of Fairview's 1,800 population in 1898 were students. Recreational needs
were accommodated in a social hall and the Eclipse Pavilion.
arrival of the Rio Grande Western railroad in the 1890s bolstered Fairview's
ability to import equipment and export its surplus goods, immensely
benefiting the town's economic strength as it also did for other Sanpete
cities. Fairview's fortunes rose and fell with the cycle of the regional
economy after the railroad-enhanced boom and its population high-water
mark in 1900, however.