Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 3,978, laid out in 1850.
Fairmount Township gives you more for your money than most places: homes are within reach, about $117K for a typical one, or 2.2 years of the Marion area’s $54K median household income. It grades C− overall, ranked 520th of 585 in Indiana. The low prices come with trade-offs. Residents are less healthy than 91% of U.S. towns on CDC estimates. 22% of residents live below the poverty line in Fairmount Township, above both the Indiana town median (10%) and the median of U.S. towns (9.6%).
Where Fairmount Township beats most towns, and one thing worth knowing.
Where Fairmount Township’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Indiana), ordered by how far Fairmount Township is from typical.
Its best grade is an A− for history (laid out 1850), which describes the town but isn’t part of the overall grade; its C− comes from the livability subjects above.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 337 in 1870, 2,682 in 2020. The archive holds 9 old photos and papers going back to 2006 and 2 maps from 1960 on.
Who provides power, water and the rest in Fairmount Township, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Nov 18, 2024.
Ordered by what stands out in Fairmount Township.
Fairmount Township sends most of its workers to Marion and beyond, but it has little public open land.
Among adults in Fairmount Township, 82% had a checkup this year. The town beats the Indiana average on 1 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 13.
| Fairmount Township | Indiana towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diabetes (CDC PLACES) | 17% | 13% | 12% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 45% | 39% | 35% |
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 17% | 15% | 14% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 17% | 14% |
| What stands out | Fairmount Township | IN |
|---|---|---|
| More adults treating high blood pressure | 81.4% | 77.4% |
| More older adults who have lost all their teeth | 23.8% | 15.4% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Its one school is below. The public schools here belong to Madison-Grant United School Corp. Enrollment at Fairmount Township’s public school: 292 students.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Park Elementary SchoolLargest public elementary schoolGrades 3–6 | Grades 3–6 | 292 | C |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within IN on state tests and graduation
Fairmount Township has 373 jobs for its 1,549 working residents: even if every job went to a resident, most would still commute out.
The top destinations are Marion (26%), Gas City (7%) and Fairmount (7%). For half of commuters, work is under 13 miles away. Fairmount Township’s typical household income comes in at $66,000.
| Fairmount Township | Indiana towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $66,000 | $71,000 | $80,000 |
| Working residents who work in town | 7.1% | 11% | 8% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
The range runs from 19° on a January night to 84° on a July afternoon, with about 25 inches of snow a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Just 63 of its 19,396 acres are conserved, so there is little public open land in Fairmount Township itself; its outdoors grade is C−.
1.5 miles of trail. Fairmount Township’s concentration of trails is 0.1 miles per square mile.
| Fairmount Township | Indiana towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.1 miles per square mile | 0.2 | 0.4 |
| Conserved land | 0.3% | 1.9% | 4.3% |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Expected storm and flood damage is lower than in just over half of U.S. communities. Just over half of Fairmount Township’s expected losses from natural hazards come from inland flooding, followed by tornadoes at 24%. 2 flood insurance claims have been paid locally since 2005.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Fairmount Township. Close and well known come first.
37 mi MuseumConner Prairie
33 mi TheatreRuoff Music Center
33 mi MuseumIndiana Transportation Museum32 mi MuseumGrissom Air Museum
31 mi MuseumInternational Circus Hall of Fame
19 mi GardenMinnetristaConner Prairie: Unknown, CC BY 2.5 · Ruoff Music Center: TownePost Network, CC BY 2.0 · Indiana Transportation Museum: Jeremy C. Schultz, CC BY-SA 3.0 · International Circus Hall of Fame: Nyttend, Public domain · Minnetrista: XWHJ2004, CC BY 2.0
3 within 15 miles of the center of Fairmount Township
About 5 of every 100 Fairmount Township residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Indiana.
Town in Indiana, United States
Fairmount is a town in Fairmount Township, Grant County in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 2,682 at the 2020 census. It is 55 miles (88 km) northeast of Indianapolis. Largely a bedroom community for nearby Marion, Fairmount is best known as the boyhood home of actor James Dean, who is buried there.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
4 towns share a border with Fairmount Township.
| Town | IN rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fairmount Township | #520 | C− | B+ | — | C+ | D |
| Mill Township | #524 | C− | B+ | — | B− | D |
| Jefferson Township | #300 | B | C+ | — | B | C+ |
| Liberty Township | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Van Buren Township | — | — | A+ | — | C+ | C |
Van Buren Township has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Fairmount Township, Mill Township, Jefferson Township and Van Buren Township report no FBI crime data of their own. Liberty Township isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Fairmount Township with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Fairmount Township grades C− overall, better than 24% of U.S. towns and #520 of 585 in Indiana. It grades D for health and C+ for schools. Health is its weak spot, with a D.
Not for the area. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B+.
