Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Polo Polo, IL

Polo is a small city in Ogle County, Illinois, that was named after the Venetian explorer Marco Polo.

Polo was incorporated on February 16, 1857, and it already counted 1,805 residents by the 1870 census.

Polo's official motto is 'Gateway to the Pines,' a nod to the pine groves of the surrounding Ogle County countryside.

Polo had a population of 2,291 at the 2020 census, down from its peak of 2,643 in 1980 after decades of slow decline.

Polo has 965 households, and about 42% of them are married-couple households, while nearly a third are made up of people living alone.

The Polo Public Library, at 302 West Mason Street, occupies one of the Carnegie library buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the library itself traces back to a membership association founded in 1871.

Polo's children attend Polo School District 222, which runs Centennial Elementary School, Aplington Middle School, and Polo Community High School.

Polo was the hometown of Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, the first woman ever admitted as a member of the American Medical Association.

Economist George Peek, a leading figure in early American farm policy, was another notable native of Polo.

Polo covers just 1.45 square miles in Buffalo Township, and its population was 93.6% White at the 2020 census, typical of rural northern Illinois.