Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Ava Ava, IL

Ava is a small city in northwestern Jackson County, Illinois, in the hills of Southern Illinois near the Shawnee National Forest region.

The 2020 census counted 553 people in Ava, living in 214 households and 149 families.

Ava's population peaked at 984 residents in the 1900 census, when it was a busier railroad and milling town.

Ava has a famously odd civic history: in 1894 residents discovered that after supposedly existing as a town for some thirty or forty years, Ava had never actually been incorporated, so an election was quickly held and a town charter was secured that August.

Before it was Ava, the settlement was a hamlet known as 'Headquarters,' and it only began to grow once the railroad — the line that became the Mobile & Ohio — was built through the area.

Ava's early economy ran on flour milling: the Husband & Russell mill, started in 1877 with a roller process, was a leading local business in the 1890s.

Illinois Route 4 passes through Ava as Knauer Street, and the county seat of Murphysboro lies about 14 miles to the southeast.

Ava covers just 1.07 square miles and uses ZIP code 62907.

Ava students are served by the Trico Community Unit School District 176, based in nearby Campbell Hill.

Ava was the hometown of brothers Andy High and Charlie High, who both played Major League Baseball in the early 1900s, Charlie as an outfielder for the Philadelphia Athletics.