Most of Fairview was built recently: 0.7% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1997. Below: 1 old photo or paper and maps from 1990 on.
Founding year: the first Fairview post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Fairview’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Fairview is more historic than 56% of U.S. towns. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
B
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Fairview’s overall grade.
North Carolina towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical North Carolina town has 12.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Fairview’s 52.2 sits above most of its state (69% of North Carolina towns have fewer) while its 12 historic buildings outnumber those of 77% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C+ to A−. The pre-1940 share (±1.1 points) is firm at this size. The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Fairview’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The William Nelson Camp Jr. House, John A. Lanning House, Dr. Cireo McAfee McCracken House, and Sherrill's Inn are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Martin Gash bought 76 acres on Cripple Creek (later Gash's Creek) on November 27, 1793. Marshes which attracted buffalo had to be drained in order to use the land.
This area contains rich farm valleys and protective mountain walls, stewarded by the Cherokee people and other indigenous groups for 10,000 years or more before European settlers arrived in the late 18th century. As was the case with Martin Gash's land, many of the marshes were drained and the creeks were channeled to make farmland more usable for settler forms of agriculture and export of crops such as Tobacco.
The Fairview post office opened in 1835, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Fairview rank for history?
Fairview is more historic than 56% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Fairview?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Sherrill's Inn (listed 1975, the first). 12 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Fairview?
0.7% of Fairview’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.1 points), against a typical 4.1% for a North Carolina town; the median home was built in 1997.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (4), the Library of Congress (1), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
Date?
2024
2024
2021
2003