The story
Read it all →How Ipava came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Ipava.
Ipava was platted in 1846, at the time called Pleasantville. It was renamed to Ipava in 1853 when it was incorporated.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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History · Ipava
Ipava’s post office opened in 1852, and 45% of its homes were built before 1940
Below: old-book passages.
1852first post office
0on the National Register
45%homes built before 1940
Quick answers
How Ipava began
When was Ipava founded?
1852
The Ipava post office opened in 1852, the earliest record of the town by name.
2020 census: 447174 years
Founding year: the first Ipava post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Ipava’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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Start Ipava’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Ipava’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.From the old history books
What they wrote about Ipava in 1879
Passages that mention Ipava, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Fulton county, Illinois1879 · page 986Read the page →
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Bernadotte, and in 1840 erected one of the first mills in this county, which was swept away by the spring freshet of 1844. He was prominently identified with the early settlement of the county, and is at present living at Ipava. The subject of this sketch has been engaged in the County Clerk's office since his boyhood. In Sept., 1862, he engaged in tlie sutler's department of the 103d regt., I. V.
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History of Fulton county, Illinois1879 · page 1004Read the page →
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Messrs. Leigh &: Miller returned the office to Ipava, and changed the name from the Fulton Phoenix to Ipava Independent. These gentlemen conducted the paper for a period of two months, when they sold the entire establishment to Mr. A. H. McKeighan. This gentleman inimediately changed its name to The Sfreain of Light, and has continuetl as both editor and proj)rictor since.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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Places that used to be
Places now gone
Ipava’s post office has been open since 1852.
Gone or out of use
Ipava Schoolschool
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Ipava’s history
What year was Ipava founded?
The Ipava post office opened in 1852, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Memory lane
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Sources
Where this page comes from
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikipedia, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.