Eldred is a village in Greene County, Illinois, United States. The population was 149 at the 2020 census.
History
Eldred was founded because of its situation in the Illinois River Bottoms as a town that combined the values of a river and a bluff-side village. Eldred first appeared on river plat books as "Farrow Town" in the 1830s, but was founded sometime before the admittance of Illinois as a state in 1818. A few of its original founders, were of Scotch-Irish ancestry from the Upland South.
Geography
Eldred is located in southwestern Greene County. Illinois Route 108 passes through the village, leading east to Carrollton, the Greene County seat, and west to the Illinois River and the Kampsville ferry.
According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Eldred has a total area of , all land.
Situated in the lower Illinois River Valley, north of the Illinois River's confluence with the Mississippi River at Grafton, Eldred is nestled between the soaring limestone bluffs and the fertile bottom land that follow the Illinois in its southern extreme. The bottoms were systematically drained during the 1920s, which caused much contention among the villagers as to the merits of drainage. Nevertheless, the drainage occurred and created a great expanse of farmland for the counties along the river.
Demographics
As of the 2020 census