24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Hartford, MI

Hartford is a small city in Van Buren County in southwest Michigan, located within Hartford Township but politically independent of it.

Local history credits Tom Conklin as Hartford's first settler; he arrived in the mid-1800s in a party of pioneers from New York State that included Burrell Olney.

Hartford's Ely Park was named by Horace Olney, who built the city's first bank in 1910 and named the park for his mother, an Ely girl.

Hartford first appeared in the federal census in 1880 with 838 residents, grew slowly for a century, and peaked at 2,688 people in 2010.

Hartford had 2,515 residents and 869 households in the 2020 census, with a young median age of 32.8 years.

About a third of Hartford's residents — 33.9%, or 852 people — were Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 census, one of the higher shares in Van Buren County.

The Census Bureau classified Hartford as 100% rural in 2020, even though it is an incorporated city of about 1.36 square miles.

Hartford Motor Speedway, a 3/8-mile dirt track at the edge of town, hosts sprint-car racing including World of Outlaws events and the Monster Truck Throwdown through the spring, summer and fall.

Hartford is one endpoint of the Van Buren Trail, a rail trail running through the county's farm and fruit country.

Hartford celebrates its farm heritage with an annual Strawberry Festival in early June, and local students attend Hartford Public Schools.