Hillview is a village in Greene County, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, United States

United States

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. The population was 179 at the 2000 census.

Geography

Hillview is located at 39°26′59"N 90°32′17"W (39.449652, -90.537983).

According to the United States Census Bureau

United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, the village has a total area of 0.9 square miles (2.3 km²), all of it land.

Demographics

As of the census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

of 2000, there were 179 people, 63 households, and 50 families residing in the village. The population density

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 was 211.2 people per square mile (81.3/km²). There were 72 housing units at an average density of 85.0 per square mile (32.7/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 100.00% White.

There were 63 households out of which 30.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 65.1% were married couples

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 living together, 7.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.6% were non-families. 19.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.84 and the average family size was 3.24.

In the village the population was spread out with 28.5% under the age of 18, 5.0% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 21.8% from 45 to 64, and 16.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 98.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.9 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $24,167, and the median income for a family was $25,625. Males had a median income of $15,625 versus $18,750 for females. The per capita income

Per capita income

Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...

 for the village was $9,157. About 23.7% of families and 25.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.5% of those under the age of eighteen and 15.4% of those sixty five or over.

About Hillview

Hillview is a farming community bordering the Illinois River and includes the Nutwood Drainage & Levee District. Hillview sits in a bowl beside the bluffs with a railroad line running alongside the main road and dividing the village. A small lake exists on the edge of town by the Hillview-Eldred Road underpass for part of the year.

Hillview is part of the North Greene Community school system. Hillview Elementary School is now closed and grade school aged children attend Roodhouse or Whitehall Elementary schools. Seventh and eighth graders to Roodhouse and high schoolers to White Hall. The mascot of the school system is the Spartan, and school colors are a navy blue. The symbol is a line drawing of a spartan head and helmet in profile.

Hillview's Hurricane Creek floods regularly effecting the southern part of Hillview. The Great Flood of 1993 nearly submerged Hillview completely.

In the 1980s Hillview included two taverns, several churches, a post office and an elementary school.

History

(From the Illinois Valley Cultural Heritage Association website) William Shelton, a ranger from Ft. Russell, Edwardsville, chose the alcove at the mouth of Hurricane Creek (creek at Eldred also called Hurricane), in 1826, to build a cabin. He left no record except Shelton’s Hill, Shelton’s Spring, and Shelton’s Graveyard. A back water lake bore the name of another early settler, Bucks Lake, for Joseph Buck, 1825. Another family name is Bishop’s Dell for James Bishop, 1830. The farm where Bishop's Dell was located is bordered on the south by Trimley creek and the barn that James Bishop constructed using wooden pegs still stands as well as the foundation of his one room stone home built against the bluff. Seely and Hodges built a mill on the creek in 1833. W. D. Wells came from North Carolina in 1834 and planted a small apple orchard on his farm. Later the McClay Orchard became famous for its varieties of apples and methods in orchard management. When the Chicago and Alton Railroad connected with the Kansas City branch at Roodhouse, Hillview was a lumber camp called Happy Ville. This is the same on the Illinois Atlas map of Greene County, 1876. The village of Hillview was incorporated in 1903. It still remains the router of the Illinois Central Gulf West.

Indian History

In the 1980s the Kampsville Archeological Center, located in Kampsville, IL, dug in the sand ridge area west of Hillview. Pottery, axes, grinding stones and arrowheads are not uncommon in this area and it was theorized that the area was a factory for arrowheads at one time, without permanent settlement.