Ina: Where Cherokee Refugees Settled

Between November eighteen thirty-eight and January eighteen thirty-nine, thousands of Cherokee men, women, and children passed through southern Illinois on the Trail of Tears, forced west by the United States government from their homelands in the Great Smoky Mountains. Some never made it to Oklahoma. A number of Cherokee families settled near what would become Ina, in Jefferson County, Illinois, putting down roots in the area around eighteen forty.

The community grew enough around these families that locals jokingly called the place the Cherokee Reservation. The nearest commercial center, a settlement called Spring Garden about three miles northeast, prospered for decades until the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad arrived in nineteen oh five and drew business to the new depots at Ina and Bonnie. Ina has remained a small village, but its connection to a painful chapter of American history gives it a depth unusual for a crossroads town.