Fairmont, Minnesota, and its chain of lakes contrast with their Corn Belt suroundings, about 1980. The lakeside site is typical of many small towns and cities in the eastern half of the Upper Midwest. Pioneer settlers built at the present downtown location (center). In the 1880s, the railroads ran east to west at the north edge of downtown. A century of residential growth expanded away from the tracks and parallel to the lake shores. Photo, Fairmont Photo Press, Inc., Fairmont, MN.