Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Havana, IL

Havana is the county seat and largest city of Mason County in central Illinois, standing on the east bank of the Illinois River across from the mouth of the Spoon River.

The settlement began as Ross's Ferry, after Ossian M. Ross, who arrived in October 1827 and built the Ross Hotel in 1829; the town plat was recorded on June 2, 1835.

Havana took its name from Cuba Island in the Illinois River nearby, an island whose shape was said to resemble the island of Cuba.

Havana was incorporated as a town in 1848, as a village in 1853, and as a city in 1873.

The 2020 census counted 2,963 people and 1,317 households in Havana, down from 3,301 people in 2010.

Around 1900 Havana was known as the 'Tourist Capital of Illinois' for its fishing and hunting, and in its boom years its population peaked at roughly 5,000, supported by hotels, bars and gambling houses.

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas both rested and spoke in Havana on several occasions during their careers, though they never held one of their famous debates there.

Local lore recounted by Peoria Magazine holds that Al Capone ran gambling boats on the Illinois River near Havana during Prohibition, until a coordinated Halloween-night raid shut down his Mason County operations.

Just northeast of Havana, the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge protects more than 6,000 acres of Illinois River wetlands and bottomland forest.

The Stephen A. Forbes Biological Station, founded outside Havana in 1894 and now based at the refuge, is the oldest inland field station in North America.