Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in McHenry, IL

McHenry is a city in McHenry County, Illinois, about 46 miles northwest of Chicago, whose motto is "Heart of the Fox River" — the Fox River flows through the eastern portion of the city.

McHenry was founded on May 10, 1836, and incorporated as a village in 1872; it was once the county seat of a McHenry County that originally included all of today's neighboring Lake County.

Both the city and county are named for Major William McHenry, a prominent U.S. Army officer in the Black Hawk War.

Settler George Gage arrived in 1835 and built up the west-bank settlement first known as Gagetown and later West McHenry, and in 1854 he played a key role in bringing the railroad to town.

In 1851 a dam on Boone Creek created Mill Pond in the heart of McHenry; the pond survived until the dam was removed and it was drained in 1929.

The city's first bridge across the Fox River, an iron truss bridge at Pearl Street, was built in 1880–1881, and the city's newspaper, the McHenry Plaindealer, published its first issue on August 4, 1875.

The 2020 census counted 27,135 people in McHenry, living in 10,685 households.

Moraine Hills State Park sits on McHenry's east end, centered on the 48-acre glacial Lake Defiance and connected to the Stratton Lock and Dam on the Fox River.

The Prairie Trail, a section of the Grand Illinois Trail, runs through the middle of McHenry, and the 0.73-mile McHenry Riverwalk links the Green Street and Riverside Drive downtown districts along Boone Creek and the Fox River.

McHenry throws an eleven-day Fiesta Days festival every mid-July, and since 2018 its Shamrocks the Fox festival has dyed the Fox River green around St. Patrick's Day, drawing three to five thousand attendees.