Worden, IL

Worden is a Madison County village in southwestern Illinois, about three miles north of Hamel and within reach of Alton, Edwardsville, and the St. Louis region. The 2020 census counted 1,096 residents. Worden Elementary School is part of Edwardsville Community Unit School District 7, whose 185-square-mile boundary includes small towns, villages, and rural roads. The village's everyday life is tied to school, local businesses, farm country, and the larger shopping and employment centers along the I-55 corridor.

Worden began as New Hampton, laid out in 1860; when the railroad arrived in 1870, the station took the Worden name, after John C. Worden. The rail line turned a rural settlement into a shipping stop, while the nearby highway network later made commuting easier. The former Worden school district joined District 7 in 1987, and Worden Elementary opened in 2008 as part of the district's expansion. The village is small, but it sits in a busy edge-of-metro landscape where prairie roads, trains, schools, and St. Louis-bound traffic overlap.