Ina is a village in Jefferson County,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, United States. The population was 1,641 as of the 2020 census. It is part of the

Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is the former residence and plantation of George Washington, a Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States, and his wife, Martha. An American landmar ...

Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

Ina is located along

Illinois Route 37 Illinois Route 37, Illinois 37 or IL 37, is a north–south state highway in southern Illinois. IL 37's southern terminus is at U.S. Route 51 (US 51) and IL 3 in Cairo and the northern terminus is at US 45 in Watson. Rou ...

which is the village's Main Street, and

Interstate 57 Interstate 57 (I-57) is a north–south Interstate Highway that exists in two segments. It runs through Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. I-57 parallels the old Illinois Central Railroad for much of its route north of Interstate 55, I-55. T ...

runs through the west side of town, with access from Exit 83.

, the Jefferson

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

, is to the north, and Benton is the same distance to the south. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Ina has a total area of , all land. Ina is located on high ground between Casey Creek and Gun Creek, both tributaries of the

Big Muddy River The Big Muddy River is a river in southern Illinois. It joins the Mississippi River just south of Grand Tower. The Big Muddy has been dammed near Benton, forming Rend Lake. The Big Muddy has a mud bottom for most of its length. Hydrography ...

. The Big Muddy has been dammed to form Rend Lake, with arms of the lake extending up the two tributaries. Ina is the home of the Big Muddy River Correctional Center.

Rend Lake College Rend Lake College (RLC) is a public community college in Ina, Illinois. It is part of the Illinois Community College System (ICCS). History Rend Lake College was founded in 1955 as Mt. Vernon Community College to allow students from High School ...

, with an Ina mailing address, is outside the village limits to the southwest.

History

Many

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

families settled in Ina around 1840. They were apparently refugees from the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their black slaves within that were ethnically cleansed by the U ...

. In the 1800s, Ina was jokingly referred to as "the Cherokee Reservation". The main settlement in this area was Spring Garden, about northeast of Ina. Spring Garden prospered from 1848 until the

Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad The Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago, Illinois, Chicago to southern Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, and Evansville, Indiana, Evansville. Founded in 1877, it grew aggressively and staye ...

was built in 1905. After that, the population and business shifted over to the depots at Ina and

Bonnie Bonnie is a Scottish given name and is sometimes used as a descriptive reference, as in the Scottish folk song, My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean or Bonnie Dundee about John Graham, 7th Laird of Claverhouse. It comes from the Scots language word "bon ...

Crimes

An infamous murder case occurred in Ina in 1924, when Rev. Lawrence Hight and his lover Elsie Sweeten poisoned Sweeten's husband in July and Hight's wife in September. Autopsies revealed

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

. Hight and Sweeten were both sent to prison. Elsie Sweeten was granted another trial and was later acquitted of murder and released from jail. Over six decades later a quadruple homicide occurred outside of town. The victims were the Dardeen family, who lived in a

mobile home A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabrication, prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or ...

just north of the Franklin County line. One evening in November 1987, the police came to the house since Keith Dardeen had not shown up for his job at the Rend Lake Water Conservancy District treatment plant that morning and did not answer phone calls. Elaine had not been raped, valuable items remained in the house, and police found no reason why anyone might want to have killed the family.

Serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

Tommy Lynn Sells Tommy Lynn Sells (June 28, 1964 – April 3, 2014) was an American serial killer who became known as the Coast to Coast Killer. Although he was convicted of only two murders, one of which he was sentenced to death and eventually executed for, Sel ...

confessed to the crime after he was arrested in Texas in 2000; however, police and the other members of the Dardeen family did not completely believe his accounts, which he changed three times, and he did not seem to know any nonpublic information about the crime. He was never charged before his 2014 execution, and officially the Dardeens' killings remain unsolved.

Demographics

The following population figures for Ina were greatly influenced by the approximately 1,850 male inmates who were included from the Big Muddy River Correctional Center, which had been annexed to the original village. As of the 2020 census there were 1,641 people, 202 households, and 125 families residing in the village. The population density was . There were 214 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 65.08%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 24.31%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.18% Native American, 0.67% Asian, 0.00%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 7.31% from other races, and 2.44% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 8.41% of the population. There were 202 households, out of which 31.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.62% were married couples living together, 20.79% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.12% were non-families. 33.66% of all households were made up of individuals, and 19.31% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.46 and the average family size was 2.62. The village's age distribution consisted of 6.1% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 44.7% from 25 to 44, 29.5% from 45 to 64, and 12.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.3 years. For every 100 females, there were 647.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 884.6 males. The median income for a household in the village was $43,636, and the median income for a family was $57,625. Males had a median income of $38,036 versus $19,167 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the village was $4,800. About 12.8% of families and 18.5% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 18.5% of those under age 18 and 18.3% of those age 65 or over.

Education

Spring Garden School District 178 operates area schools, including Spring Garden Elementary School (with a

postal address but outside of the city) and Spring Garden Middle School in Ina.Home
. Spring Garden School District 178. Retrieved on May 28, 2019.

References

{{authority control Villages in Jefferson County, Illinois Mount Vernon, Illinois micropolitan area 19th-century Cherokee history Populated places established in 1840 Villages in Illinois