24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Hamburg, IL

Hamburg is a tiny village in Calhoun County, Illinois, sitting right on the Mississippi River in Hamburg Precinct, with Hardin as its county seat.

One hundred lots in the town of Hamburg were offered for sale by John Shaw in 1836, making it one of the early river towns platted along this stretch of the Mississippi.

Hamburg was once a thriving river community where apples were loaded and shipped downriver, its banks were busy and profitable, and its stores were laden with goods and shoppers.

A bluff-top monument overlooks the village marking the burial of riverboat Captain Swarnes, who wished to be buried upright so he could command a panoramic view of the river.

In 1975, National Geographic published a two-page photograph of the steamboat Delta Queen heading up the Mississippi, taken from Captain Swarnes' monument as the vantage point.

Hamburg's population peaked at 352 residents in the 1920 census, back when the river trade was still the lifeblood of the town.

Hamburg had just 99 residents at the 2020 census, living in 42 households, down from 128 people in 2010.

The village covers only about 0.66 square miles, and roughly a fifth of that area is water, so Hamburg quite literally sits along — and sometimes in — the waters of the Mississippi.

Today the Hamburg Post Office is the village's only public facility, a quiet remnant of its busier river-port days.