Wataga, Illinois.
Typical home $135,488 (+17.9% in a year). Galesburg, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$380 (+115%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $20,542 +18%
- $114,946$135,488 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $31,964 +31%
- $103,524$135,488 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Wataga$711
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Wataga, IL rose 17.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wataga, Knox County, Illinois
Wataga is a village of 744 people in Knox County. Unemployment in Knox County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Wataga is a small village in Knox County, Illinois, home to a young community by the standards of most small towns. Homes here cost less than in much of the country, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm in July, and rain and melted snow arrive through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, transport and warehouses, and manufacturing also employing many. Across Knox County, among the largest workplaces are Galesburg CUSD, St. Mary Medical Center and Knox College. The typical commute is moderate, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Henderson Creek, a river in or beside town, is the nearest water to explore. A short drive away are the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site, a museum, and the Galesburg Railroad Museum. Farther out, Spoon River and Snakeden Hollow State Fish and Wildlife Area offer a longer trip to the outdoors.
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- 327households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Knox County had 17,188 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 65°. About 26 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Galesburg weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Knox County
- Galesburg CUSD 205School district562FTE
- St. Mary Medical CenterGeneral hospital470FTE
- Knox CollegeUniversity or college465
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters392
- State of IL - IDOC - Hill CCPardon boards and offices301
- Carl Sandburg CollegeTwo-year college285
- Abingdon-Avon CUSD 276School district226FTE
- MidMachine shops216
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,268 people in all across the county; Wataga has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Strong windVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Wataga’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Knox County and the Galesburg, IL metro.
Wataga home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wataga$135,488
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Wataga address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wataga — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.