Early architecture in Fairfield includes work by George Franklin Barber and Barry Byrne.

The name was suggested by Nancy Bonnifield, one of the settlers, because it aptly described the fair fields of the area.

But author Susan Welty suggests it was also a play of words on the woman's own name (bonny field).

[7] During the time leading up to the American Civil War, Fairfield was a stopping point for the Underground Railroad.

In 1892, Senator "Jefferson Jim" Wilson met with Andrew Carnegie and secured a grant to build the first community-based library in the U.S.

The Richardsonian Romanesque work is now operated by Indian Hills Community College as a satellite campus building, as a new library was built in 1996.

Fairfield's geography is typical of the American Midwest: around the city is rolling farmland specializing in corn, soybeans, cattle and hogs.

[27] Later, the city was dubbed "Silicorn Valley" because of the preponderance of new businesses that were Internet and information based, founded by practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique.

[31] Eco friendly subdivisions that border Fairfield and also use the architectural principles of Maharishi Sthapatya Veda include Cypress Villages, a 145-acre (0.59 km2) development north of the city, and Abundance Ecovillage, an off-the-grid community of 14 homes built in three clusters[32] north of Fairfield.

The first LEED Platinum home in the state of Iowa was built nearby in the Cypress Villages Subdivision.

Cypress Villages applied to the state for incorporation as it could not be annexed into either Fairfield or Maharishi Vedic City.

[43] According to City officials, Fairfield received investments of over $200 million in venture capital from approximately 1990 to 2004.

[44] A 2004 National Public Radio report said that over the past 20 years "TM proponents" had created thousands of jobs and more than 200 businesses.

In 2011, the FEA published the Fairifield Edge magazine that contains profiles of over 40 businesses and organizations and describes the entrepreneurial culture of Fairfield and "asset quilting" to support civic and social entrepreneurship.

An article in the IEDC Economic Development Journal described Fairfield as a Rural Renaissance City because of its entrepreneurial population.

[43] A 2011 article in The Atlantic reported that newcomers to the town had founded more than 400 new businesses in the fields of marketing, computer programming and manufacturing, including 40 telecom and software companies.

The city's largest employer was reported to be the national broker/dealer services firm called Cambridge Investment Research, with about 400 local employees.

[28] The complex consists of a 522-seat proscenium theatre, a business pavilion, meeting rooms, executive conference suite, art gallery, commercial kitchen, offices and outdoor plaza.

[58] In 2009, a concert by The Beach Boys and The Nadas was held on the Fairfield Middle School grounds, as a benefit for the FACC and the city's Green Sustainability Plan.

[63][64] Many of its current residents moved there to participate in the group practice of the TM and TM-Sidhi program inside one of the two Golden Domes built in 1981 and 1982 on the Maharishi International University campus.

Locally, TM practitioners are sometimes called "roos", slang for gurus,[65] a term they have appropriated, although they "refer to themselves as meditators".

Yogic Flyers living in Fairfield who are not part of the university are said to be members of the "Town Super Radiance" (TSR) community.

[67] In 2004, National Public Radio reported that "after 30 years, many in Iowa are comfortable with Fairfield's TM community"[28] and a 2008 article in The Wall Street Journal said "natives lived uneasily with the outsiders...but the election of Mr. Malloy [in 2001]... helped ease those tensions".

[70] An account of her visit titled "America's Most Unusual Town", was broadcast in March 2012 via the Oprah Winfrey Network.

[74][75] In 2012, Fairfield was selected "as one of ten finalists" in the Blue Zones community "small city category" primarily because of its "many walking trails and outdoor activities".

[82] In 2009 the city qualified for an $80,000 grant from the state Office of Energy Independence as funding for a sustainability plan scheduled to be completed in 2020.

[83][84] The city was one of 21 locations to receive the state Governor's Environmental Excellence Award in 2013 after it reduced its energy consumption by more than 8% in one year.

In 1984, an addition to the school provided a commons area, new library, new kitchen, a counseling office, and an expansion of the gymnasium.

The old steel trestle has been removed from its crossing, and the walking trail that circumnavigates the city uses part of the old roadbed.

A section of narrow gauge roadbed can be found cutting its way through Whitham Woods, a park on Fairfield's western edge.