Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Batavia, IL

Batavia is a city on the Fox River in Kane County, west of Chicago, first settled in 1833 and among the earliest communities in Kane County.

The settlement was originally known as Head of the Big Woods before Judge Isaac Wilson renamed it Batavia in 1841, after his hometown of Batavia, New York.

Batavia was once known as the Windmill Capital of the World, home to six windmill manufacturers between 1863 and 1950, including the U.S. Wind Engine & Pump Company, the Challenge Company, and the Appleton Manufacturing Company.

The windmill industry grew out of Daniel Halladay's self-governing windmill, invented in 1854, and Batavia's U.S. Wind Engine & Pump Company began operations in 1863 with direct ties to Halladay.

More than 18 restored Batavia-made windmills are displayed at public and commercial sites around the city today, including along the Batavia Riverwalk, and the city celebrates its heritage at the annual Windmill City Festival.

Batavia's limestone quarries were another major industry, and after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 its roughly ten quarries supplied stone used to rebuild Chicago.

The nearly 70-foot-tall Fabyan Windmill, built in the 1850s, stands in the Fabyan Forest Preserve and is one of the area's best-known landmarks.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the federal high-energy physics laboratory where the bottom quark and top quark were first detected, sits just east of Batavia's city limits.

The flat-bottomed paper bag was invented in Batavia, one of several inventions to come out of the Fox River city.

Batavia's population was 26,098 at the 2020 census, essentially flat from 26,045 in 2010.