Hecker, Illinois
14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1912 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Precinct 1. It lies in ZIP code area 62248. The Survey maps it on the New Athens West quadrangle. 429 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 472 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresHecker fell from 481 to 429 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 481 | |
| 2020 | 429 | -52 (-11%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 14 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1912 USGS New Athens quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1954 USGS New Athens quadrangle1:62500
- 1954 USGS New Athens West quadrangle1:24000, 4 printings
- 1958 USGS Belleville quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1962 USGS Belleville quadrangle1:250000
- 1985 USGS Pinckneyville quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1990 USGS New Athens West quadrangle1:24000
Mines and quarries near this place
2 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Hecker: 1 past producer, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limestone Prospect | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Occurrence | ||
| Unnamed Limestone Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer |
Storms near this place
17 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Hecker in 17 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 8 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | $150,000 | Thunderstorm wind gusts caused damage at a couple of farms on Griggs Road in southeast Monroe County. A couple of machine sheds were destroyed, damaging the tractors and other farm equipment inside. Some silos and grain bins were also damaged. |
| May 1995 | Tornado (F1) | Hecker | $100,000 | A tornado touched down along Sportman Road just south of Highway 3 knocking down nearby trees. As the tornado moved northeast, a home and barn were damaged less than a mile northeast of Highway 3. The roof of the home had structural roof damage and debris from the barn was blown 200 to 300 yards to the northeast. The tornado then damaged three homes north of County Road KK and knocked down trees. One farm had a house and barn heavily damaged just south of Highway 156 before the tornado lifted. |
| April 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | $5,000 | The county sheriff reported numerous downed trees and a damaged grain bin. |
| April 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | - | Thunderstorm winds downed power poles west of Hecker. |
| April 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | - | Widespread wind damage occurred in Hecker just to the south of the tornado. Several homes in town suffered minor to moderate roof damage. Also, several large trees were snapped off, a couple of power poles were broken off as well and numerous tree limbs were blown down. |
| September 2018 | Flash Flood | Hecker | - | Up to five inches of rain fell in a short amount of time causing flash flooding. Numerous roads were flooded including Illinois Routes 159 and 156. |
| February 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | - | Thunderstorms winds blew down a large tree across a road in town. |
| May 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | - | Thunderstorm winds snapped a large tree off at the ground. |
| April 2012 | Hail | Hecker | - | Hail was covering the ground. |
| October 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Hecker | - | A trained spotter measured a 78 mph wind gust in Hecker with a mobile anemometer. |
| May 2008 | Hail | Hecker | - | Storm spotters reported several minutes of hail up to 1 1/4 inch in diameter near the Randolph County line. |
| May 2003 | Hail | Hecker | - | Amateur radio spotters reported 3/4 inch hail. |
| April 1998 | Hail | Hecker | - | 1 inch hail covered the ground in Hecker. |
| May 1993 | Hail | Hecker | - | Ham radio spotters reported one inch diameter hail. |
| March 2025 | Hail | Hecker | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Hecker | - | no account filed |
| April 2006 | Hail | Hecker | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burksville Station | 7.1 miles | 18 | |
| Tipton | 7.4 miles | 16 | |
| Lemens | 8.0 miles | 19 | |
| Waterloo | 8.5 miles | 19 | |
| Burksville | 8.8 miles | 19 | |
| Saint Joe | 9.8 miles | 18 | |
| Wartburg | 10.7 miles | 19 | |
| Ames | 11.4 miles | 16 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Hecker | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2672166 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 410019. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.






