The History of Fairview Park At
191 acres, Fairview Park is South Fayette’s largest park and site of the township’s biggest annual event, South Fayette Community Day. Located in the southeastern corner of the township and known for its beautiful, expansive views, Fairview Park also is the community's most popular park. It is home to athletic fields, sports courts, rental pavilions and open spaces—with improvements and additional amenities on the horizon. All the park property stems from the former Mayview State Hospital, a sprawling Pennsylvania psychiatric facility that operated under various names from 1893 to 2008. In its heyday, the hospital complex included about 1,000 acres, 4,000 patients, 80 buildings, a farm, a coal mine and a post office. Over the past 41 years, multiple land acquisitions from Mayview have combined to form Fairview Park.
Origins
o L st Souls of Fairview eC metery in Fairview aP rk is a burial ground of patients who died at aM yview State o H spital from 193 to 198. (Photo yb Andrea g I lar) 16 |
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Fairview Park officially was born Oct. 4, 1978, when the state donated precisely 12.378 acres of former Mayview farmland to South Fayette at no cost, under the condition it would be used for recreation. However, it appears the township leased the property prior to purchasing it.
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South Fayette’s largest, most popular park created from former state hospital property
A 1975 engineering plan labels some property adjacent to the Fairview Manor neighborhood as an “area leased to township for Fairview Park by Mayview State Hospital.” Additionally, when the park was being developed in 1981, a letter mentions “the existing backstop and nearby dilapidated play equipment area to be dismantled”—an indication that APO|M‚‚OMCB|PFaOPO*PaPJ««*|M# limited park amenities had been agg*g#agg*#FO*g#O« B J*g#OPa$FOg built while the township was leasing the site. Ken Chambon, a longtime resident of the nearby Lakemont Farms neighborhood, remembers playing PONY League baseball at Fairview Park as a young teenager around 1966. “The first existing baseball field was turned around; you hit toward the park entrance,” he recalled. “There were a couple old swings there too, nothing elaborate. So it’s come a long way.”
1980s
Once the deed was in hand, the township planned its first major park construction project: a picnic shelter (today known as the Entrance Pavilion) and one ballfield (now called Field A). “This area if very densely populated and is in dire [need] of recreational facilities,” according to a 1978 grant proposal. “Money is needed to develop this park.” In 1980, South Fayette accepted a $50,000 matching grant from the state for the $100,000 project, which was built by the end of 1981. The new ballfield replaced the old backstop. Restrooms were added in 1983, and later, a playground and
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