Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Harvard, IL

Harvard is a city in McHenry County, Illinois, 63 miles northwest of the Chicago Loop.

Harvard was platted on November 25, 1856, by Elbridge Gerry Ayer, Amos Page, and Otis Eastman around a planned Chicago and North Western railroad station, and it was named in honor of Harvard, Massachusetts.

Harvard's residents voted overwhelmingly, 550 to 5, on April 6, 1891, to turn their town into a city.

Harvard is the last stop and northwestern terminus of Metra's Union Pacific Northwest Line and the most remote station on the entire Metra system; locals correct visitors who call it the last stop by insisting "the train starts in Harvard."

The 2020 census counted 9,469 people in Harvard, and Census QuickFacts puts the city at about 3,125 households, with a notably large average household size of about 3.06 people.

Harvard is the self-proclaimed Milk Capital of the World: in the 1940s, seven dairy companies operated within a 15-mile radius and more milk was produced around Harvard than anywhere else in the United States.

Harvard Milk Days, first held in 1942 to honor local dairy farmers for ramping up milk production for servicemen during World War II, is one of the longest-running festivals in Illinois and takes over the town on the first weekend of June.

The festival's mascot, Harmilda, a fiberglass Holstein cow whose name is short for Harvard Milk Days, stands year-round at the Five Points intersection in downtown Harvard.

Motorola opened a 1.5 million-square-foot mobile telephone manufacturing and distribution plant on Harvard's north side in 1997 that employed more than 5,000 people at its peak.

Harvard's Diggins Library has served the community since 1909.