[5] It rests at an elevation of 797 feet and the Fox River flows through the eastern portion of the city.

[6] It is surrounded by natural lakes and streams, grassy moraine hills, gravel banks and shallow nutrient-rich peat bogs, remnants of receding glaciers from the last ice age.

[8][9][10] George Gage came to the area in 1835 and purchased a plot of land west of the Fox River.

On August 4, 1875, the first issue of the city newspaper, the McHenry Plaindealer, was published by Jay Van Slyke.

[17] The original single lane [18] Pearl Street bridge was built 1880-1881 over Fox River.

[21] McHenry is located 46 miles northwest of Chicago in northeastern Illinois on the Fox River.

[23] The 48 acre Lake Defiance is the centerpiece of Moraine Hills State Park on the east end of town.

[24] Typically climate and weather in McHenry year-round is similar to Chicago's, though sometimes it is warmer in summer, and colder in winter.

McHenry is home to Fiesta Days, a ten-day festival in the middle of the summer that includes music, parades, food, car shows, and more.

[32] McHenry is home to Moraine Hills State Park which has many miles of hiking trails and connects to the Stratton Lock and Dam.

[43] The Mchenry Area Chamber of Commerce also owns and operates the McHenry RiverWalk Shoppes, a retail incubator with 10 small shops in Miller Point Park, available for local businesses to rent seasonally.

[44] Connecting the Green Street and Riverside Drive downtown districts is the 0.73 mile (1.17 km) McHenry Riverwalk.

[46] Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital provides 143 beds for emergency and in and out-patient health care services to the city and surrounding areas.

[47] North of Illinois Route 120 on Illinois Route 31 is a big box retail corridor including Meijer, Aldi, Harbor Freight, Home Depot, Kohls, and Dicks Sporting Goods.

McHenry is served by one public library which is part of Cooperative Computer Services (CCS) consortium.

[48] The library itself houses physical books, DVDs, magazines, and more as well as providing access to online digital content.

[54] The line that now terminates at McHenry once continued to Williams Bay, Wisconsin, but that service was discontinued in stages in the 1960s and 1970s.