Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in New Boston, IL

New Boston is a small city in Mercer County, Illinois, sitting on the east bank of the Mississippi River at the mouth of Boston Bay and Eliza Creek, directly across the river from Iowa.

New Boston's nickname is "Yellow Banks," a reference to the bluffs along its stretch of the Mississippi.

The area was first settled by William Denison and his family in 1827, and the town itself was settled in the 1830s by "Yankee" migrants from Massachusetts.

Abraham Lincoln personally surveyed and platted New Boston in September 1834 while working as Sangamon County's deputy surveyor, laying out 16 blocks aligned with the river in just two days.

Because the Mississippi makes a wide curve at New Boston, later additions to Lincoln's grid gave the city a wagon-wheel street pattern with some curious five-way intersections.

In 1954 New Boston became the first city in Illinois to elect a woman as mayor, when Grace Histed won the office.

New Boston High School closed in 1960; today the town keeps New Boston Elementary School for its youngest students, while older students attend Mercer County Junior High and Mercer County High School in Aledo, the county seat.

Much of the natural area around New Boston belongs to the Port Louisa National Wildlife Refuge, whose wetlands and bluffs provide critical habitat for migratory birds, and Lock and Dam No. 17 on the Mississippi lies about five miles upstream.

Illinois Route 17 has its western terminus in New Boston, and nearly a third of the city's 1.40 square miles is water.

Weather records kept at New Boston Dam since 1938 show extremes from a record high of 105 degrees Fahrenheit on July 28, 2011, to a record low of minus 26 degrees on January 31, 2019.