The first documentary attestation of the village appears on a Russian military map from the anti-Ottoman war in 1828-1829. There Jurilovca locality, with 20 houses, is mentioned. Afterwards, other documents mention the same locality with different names: Jirilevca, Gucurilika or Curilika.

Tradition says that the denomination of the locality comes from the founder Jurilka, who was a Lipovan native of Vâlcov town in Basarabia. Jurilka ran away because of religion persecutions. He settled down at Jurilovca together with other Lipovans attracted by the Razim Lake fish richness.

In the village territory and its proximity, traces of inhabitancy are documented: from V-IV B.C., from the roman epoch (tumular and plain necropolis) and from IX-X A.D. However, a connection between these traces and the actual locality cannot be established.

The ancient town Orgame/Argamum, only 7 km from Jurilovca, situated on the Dolojman Cape rocky promontory is the most important historical objective. Orgame citadel was built by Milesian Greeks on the western shore of the ancient gulf Halmyris, a territory with inhabitancy traces from Bronze and first epoch of Iron ages. Orgame is the first town on the Romanian territory mentioned in a written source of VI B.C., by Hekataios from Miletus. During the Roman epoch, the citadel is registered as Argamum, Ergamia. It had an evolution of over twelve centuries, between the end of VII B.C. and the beginning of VII A.D. The unearthed monuments belong to different historical periods: Hallstatt, Greeks epoch, Roman epoch and Roman-Byzantine epoch.

In front of Orgame citadel, at about 2.5 km east, on Bisericuţa isle, ruins of another Roman-Byzantine fortification and also inhabitancy traces from more historical periods are kept.

At the beginning of XX century, the village looked like a clean little town, being an important point for caviar and smoked fish export. Fishing and connected activities had the most significant weight between the inhabitants’ occupations.