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Iola

Ghost town · Gunnison County, Colorado

Big Mesa quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1954, 1:24,000)
Big Mesa quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1954, 1:24,000) · U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain

Iola is a ghost town in Gunnison County, Colorado, recorded as human settlement in Colorado, United States of America. It is one of 6 former communities in Gunnison County on the federal names register. That ranks the county 12th among the 48 Colorado counties with a vanished settlement on record.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists Iola as a historical populated place on the Big Mesa topographic quadrangle: the name is no longer in official use for a community, whether the settlement was abandoned, absorbed into a neighbouring town or renamed. The recorded location is 38.4750° N, 107.0973° W.

In old newspapers

The earliest digitized newspaper pages printed in Colorado before 1931 that mention “Iola”, from the Library of Congress. A page may use the name for something else; open it to read the context. 533 pages in all.

Key facts

USGS quadrangleBig Mesa
Elevation7,518 ft
Nearest living townGunnison, CO
Distance to it10.6 miles
GNIS feature ID196437
Coordinates38.47499, -107.09727

Open the location on a map

What's there now

Iola is no longer a community in its own right. The nearest living town is Gunnison, CO (population 6,712), about 10.6 miles away in a straight line, and the site sits at roughly 7,518 feet above sea level. Much of the land around former townsites is private; check access before you visit.

Images

Iola
Iola · Scarpy / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Nearby places

Questions

Where is Iola?

Iola is in Gunnison County, Colorado, at 38.4750, -107.0973.

How many ghost towns are in Gunnison County?

Gunnison County, Colorado has 6 ghost towns on record at Wayfarrow.

Sources and licences

Facts marked "approximately" carry an uncertain date in the source. Text on this page is generated from the sources above; no encyclopedia prose is copied. Last updated 2026-11-05.