Why Did this Tiny Missouri Town Suddenly Become Extinct?
There are some things that will never cease to be a mystery. That is definitely the case for one tiny Missouri town that was prominent enough to have a post office back in the day, but now has no remnant remaining that it ever exited. It simply is extinct.
There's a list of ghost towns in Missouri on Wikipedia that has one singular mention of one that was known as Wila, Missouri. You can't even find it on a map these days. Travel Math says it was located at 36° 37' 0" N and 89° 47' 0" W which places it approximately here according to Google Street Maps.
As the crow flies, it's a small field due east of Parma, Missouri.
This is the only information that I can find about the extinct town of Wila, Missouri according to Wikipedia:
A post office called Wila was established in 1894, and remained in operation until 1898. A variant name was "Wiley". The community derives its name from Wiley Webb, the son of a local merchant.
Due to its proximity to New Madrid, I thought maybe the townsfolk fled the area after the historic quakes there. Unlikely since their post office was built so long after the event. Could it be that it was wiped out by a huge tornado? That happened to many small Missouri villages in the 1800's. If so, there's no record of it. It's simply a tiny Missouri town that disappeared and no one will ever know why.
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Gallery Credit: Beyond Civilization (Xplore RC) via YouTube