Heckville is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located on the high plains of the

Llano Estacado The Llano Estacado (), sometimes translated into English as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. One of the largest mesas or tablelands on the North A ...

, approximately northeast of

Lubbock Lubbock ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Lubbock County. With a population of 272,086 in 2024, Lubbock is the 10th-most populous city in Texas and the 84th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the ...

or north of Idalou in northeastern

Lubbock County, Texas Lubbock County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census placed the population at 310,639. Its county seat and largest city is Lubbock, Texas, Lubbock. The county was cr ...

, United States. This small town was named after Henry Heck, who built a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

to serve the community in 1948.Charles G. Davis, "Heckville, TX," Handbook of Texas Online, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hrh52, accessed December 26, 2011, Published by the

Texas State Historical Association The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

. Heckville is located at the point where

Farm to Market Road 400 Farm to Market Road 400 (FM 400) is a farm to market road located in Lynn, Lubbock, Hale, and Swisher counties in the Llano Estacado of Texas. Route description The southern terminus of FM 400 is at an interchange with US 87 no ...

intersects the tracks of the former Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway that extended from Estelline to

. The

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

, which last owned and operated the former Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway, abandoned and permanently removed the tracks in 1989. The community has never reported a population of more than 20. As of 2010, all that remained were rusting

grain elevator A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

s, numerous large warehouses, the remnants of a cotton gin, an abandoned country store, and a large and still active egg farm operation that produces 180,000 eggs per day.Michael Slother, "Local egg rancher talks safety, business after recall". http://www.kcbd.com/story/13052283/local-egg-rancher-talks-safety-business-after-recall , 8/26/2010.

References

External links

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Public domain photos of the Llano Estacado
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Lubbock County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas 1948 establishments in Texas

See also

References

External links