Ithaca was established in 1866 and named after Ithaca, New York — itself ultimately named for the mythical island-kingdom of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey — by a pioneer settler native to that city.

Ithaca, population 160 in 2020 and covering just 0.23 square miles, is the hometown of U.S. Marine Corps Brigadier General Harold D. Hansen (1904–1987) and is home to a historic ca. 1890 grain elevator listed on the National Register of Historic Places.