Batavia is located in Illinois on the border between DuPage and Kane Counties. The city was founded in 1833 and is the oldest known city in Kane County.

During the end of the 19th century, it was home to six American-style windmill factories and was known as “The Windmill City.”

As of July 2012, the city’s population was approximately 26,318.

Populating Batavia was held off for one year due to the Black Hawk War. During this war, Abraham Lincoln was a citizen soldier and both Jefferson Davis and Zachary Taylor were army officers. Lincoln even wrote about the experience in “Head of the Big Woods,” which was the name originally given to Batavia by Christoper Payne, who was the first to settle there. The city became unincorporated on July 27, 1872. As late as the early 20th century, many of the windmills that used water pumps on many American farms were made in one of the windmill manufacturing companies located here. The original limestone buildings that were once part of these factories are still in use today. They serve as commercial and government offices, as well as storefronts. The Aurora Elgin and Chicago Railway also constructed a power plant in the south of the city and expanded to serve Batavia in 1902.