Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Horicon, WI

Horicon is a city in Dodge County, Wisconsin, sitting at the southernmost tip of Horicon Marsh, with a population of 3,767 at the 2020 census.

The first modern settlement at Horicon dates to 1846, and William Larrabee is generally recognized as the city's founder.

Horicon's name — signifying "clear or pure water" — was borrowed from New York's Lake George, which the local Horicon Indians had originally called Lake Horicon before the English renamed it.

Settlers dammed the Rock River at Horicon to power a sawmill, flooding the marsh into a vast lake, until the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the dam torn down in 1869 on behalf of flooded landowners.

Horicon Marsh, at the city's northern edge, covers about 32,000–33,000 acres and is the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States, earning it the nickname "the Everglades of the North."

The marsh's northern two-thirds form the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1941 and originally created as a nesting area for the redhead duck, while the southern third is the Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area, established in 1927.

Horicon Marsh is designated a Wetland of International Importance and a Globally Important Bird Area, hosts more than 300 bird species, and draws huge crowds each fall for the Canada goose migration.

The marsh is a relic of the Ice Age — it is one of the nine units of the Ice Age National Scientific Reserve, and the surrounding Dodge County landscape has the highest concentration of drumlins in the world.

Horicon's largest employer is the John Deere Horicon Works, whose site dates to 1861, when the Van Brunt brothers set up a works making horse-drawn grain drills; John Deere bought the plant in 1911 and renamed it Horicon Works in 1958.

Horicon Works began building lawn and garden tractors in 1963 — its very first 110 tractor is now displayed at the Smithsonian — and it is the only John Deere facility that builds Gator utility vehicles, passing its one-millionth Gator in 2021.