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Ilia

Ghost town · Mercer County, Missouri

Cleopatra quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1964, 1:24,000)
Cleopatra quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1964, 1:24,000) · U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain

Ilia is a ghost town in Mercer County, Missouri. It is one of 2 former communities in Mercer County on the federal names register. That ranks the county 75th among the 102 Missouri counties with a vanished settlement on record.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists Ilia as a historical populated place on the Cleopatra topographic quadrangle: the name is no longer in official use for a community, whether the settlement was abandoned, absorbed into a neighbouring town or renamed. The recorded location is 40.5306° N, 93.4505° W.

Key facts

USGS quadrangleCleopatra
Elevation1,090 ft
Nearest living townMercer, MO
Distance to it4.4 miles
GNIS feature ID740238
Coordinates40.53056, -93.45050

Open the location on a map

Then and now

Drag the slider: the old USGS map on the left, the same ground from the air today on the right. Both cover the same 1.9-mile square centred on the recorded location.

Ilia today, aerial view
Cleopatra quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1964, 1:24,000)

Left: Cleopatra quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1964, 1:24,000), U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection. Right: The same ground today: NAIP aerial imagery, USDA Farm Service Agency, National Agriculture Imagery Program (via USGS). Both public domain.

What's there now

Ilia is no longer a community in its own right. The nearest living town is Mercer, MO (population 359), about 4.4 miles away in a straight line, and the site sits at roughly 1,090 feet above sea level. The aerial view above shows what covers the ground today. Much of the land around former townsites is private; check access before you visit.

Nearby places

Questions

Where is Ilia?

Ilia is in Mercer County, Missouri, at 40.5306, -93.4505.

How many ghost towns are in Mercer County?

Mercer County, Missouri has 2 ghost towns on record at Wayfarrow.

Sources and licences

Facts marked "approximately" carry an uncertain date in the source. Text on this page is generated from the sources above; no encyclopedia prose is copied. Last updated 2026-11-06.