ILKA, TEXAS. Ilka was a railroad switch five miles east of Seguin in Guadalupe County. The site was a camp for a construction gang when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway was built in 1875 and was named for a young lady in the community. Sam Neel, a local farmer, was employed by the railroad to act as agent to secure English immigrants for the area. Twenty English families settled in the vicinity in the 1870s and 1880s. At one time a model farm, a store, and a blacksmith shop were built at Ilka, but they have been abandoned.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Willie Mae Weinert, An Authentic History of Guadalupe County (Seguin, Texas: Seguin Enterprise, 1951; rpt. 1976).
