Some of the passengers of the Foreign Protestant ships settled temporarily in the Dutch Village while they waited for a more permanent settlement in Lunenburg County.

It formed a regular grid pattern up the eastern slope of Geizers Hill, facing toward the Bedford Basin and the Halifax peninsula.

Canadian National Railways established its new locomotive servicing shops and roundhouse for the Halifax area in the community, which was named Fairview Station on 1 March 1921.

In the early 1960s, to construct the inner-urban portion of Highway 102, all of the homes on School Avenue's southern side were appropriated—and subsequently demolished—by the province.

School Avenue itself is still owned by the province of Nova Scotia and is the only civic street in the area not under municipal authority.

In 1969, the City of Halifax annexed the communities of Armdale, Clayton Park, Fairview, Rockingham, and Spryfield.

Newer residential developments in outlying areas during the 1970s-1990s, such as the modern development in adjacent Clayton Park, along with a demand by families for larger homes, saw Fairview's working-class neighbourhoods of smaller homes become a less desirable location over time.

In honour of the original settlement, a section of Dutch Village Road—which had been an exit to Highway 102—was renamed Westerwald Street in November 2002.