Fairview, MT

Fairview is a Richland County town in eastern Montana, near the North Dakota line and the lower Yellowstone Valley. The 2020 census counted 896 residents. Fairview provides kindergarten through twelfth grade, and State Street is the local name for the stretch where Montana and North Dakota meet. Irrigated fields, farm roads, and the larger service center of Sidney shape the surrounding map. Sugar beets, wheat, alfalfa, beef cattle, and energy work all belong to the regional economy.

L. E. Newlon homesteaded where Fairview now stands, opened the first store, and became the first postmaster in 1904. He chose the name for the view across the valley. The Great Northern Railway later made Fairview a station, and the town incorporated in 1913. That mix of post office, rail stop, irrigated agriculture, and state-border traffic still gives the place its working outline. Fairview is a school town and farm-service point on the edge of two states, with the Yellowstone country opening out in every direction.