Harvey was founded in 1891 by Turlington W. Harvey, a close associate of Dwight Moody, the founder of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Harvey was originally intended as a model town for Christian values and was one of the Temperance Towns. It was closely modeled after the company town of Pullman, which eventually was annexed into the city of Chicago.[8]

The city had its greatest growth in the prosperous postwar years, reaching its peak population in 1980. But it suffered losses in jobs and population through restructuring of steel and similar industries in the late 20th century. The Dixie Square Mall closed in November 1976. In the 1990s, the city used part of its parking lot as the site for construction of a new main precinct of the Harvey Police Department.[citation needed]

In the 2000s and 2010s, Mayor Eric Kellogg attempted to boost Harvey’s economy, with little success. Kellogg offered developers millions of dollars in incentives to revive the long vacant Dixie Square Mall, but trends in retail adversely affected malls around the country.[9] The city granted a developer $10 million in incentives to redevelop the Chicago Park Hotel, but he abandoned the project before completion, leaving the building gutted.[10]

In February 2018, Harvey became the first city in Illinois to have its revenue garnished by the State in order to fund the city’s pension liabilities. The city laid off employees in order to deal with the changes.