City of Harvey history

However, in 1895 residents voted by a slight majority to license saloons, ending the temperance experiment.

The first Roman Catholic church, Ascension, established in 1899, was a small, predominantly Irish parish.

Despite the growth of the Catholic community, Protestants retained control of the city thanks to the adoption in 1912 of a commission form of government, which replaced ward-elected aldermen with generally elected commissioners.

Polish residents attended mass in nearby Posen until 1914, when they established St John the Baptist.

Development resumed after World War II. In 1948 Sinclair Oil established a 38-acre technology-oriented research facility for developing new products.

In 1966, Dixie Square shopping mall opened on the western edge of the city, providing space for 41 stores.

The turnover led to racial violence at Thornton Township High School and to race riots in 1969.

In 1986, both Wyman-Gordon Co. and Allis-Chalmers would close their Harvey plants, affecting nearly 1,000 workers.

The Har-V Community Coalition, a nonprofit founded in 2011 to activate citizens around the city’s major problems, was regularly scheduled to meet that day.

In 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Harvey to stop a fraudulent bond offering that the city had been marketing to potential investors.

Abney felt the pushback of speaking up during his race when his campaign office in 2015 was vandalized and later burned down, which he and others feel was politically motivated.

In 2016, Kellogg settled fraud charges by agreeing to pay $10,000 and never participate again in a municipal bond offering.