Ila, GA

Ila is a small Madison County city on a ridge between the South Fork of the Broad River and Furnace Creek. Georgia State Routes 98 and 106 meet at the center, pointing toward Athens, Carnesville, Commerce, and Danielsville. The geography gives Ila a crossroads quality, but the town’s older story is agricultural: farmers from North Carolina and Virginia settled here in the mid-1800s, and the surrounding fields grew corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat, and other crops. The Georgia General Assembly incorporated Ila in 1910.

ATTRBrian Stansberry / CC BY-SA 4.0

That farm-and-route pattern still defines the place. Athens lies about 16 miles south-southwest, Commerce about 10 miles west-northwest, and Danielsville, the Madison County seat, about five miles southeast. Ila’s 2020 census count was 350 residents, a scale that keeps the city closely tied to the fields and small communities around it. The ridge, the two state routes, and the Broad River watershed give Ila a simple but strong map: a small incorporated place positioned between watercourses, farm country, and the larger towns that handle the region’s wider business.