The village, first mentioned in a document in 1417 as "Merla", lies on the valley floor between the Hain forest area and the Pörzberg to the north-west of the town center. Further mentions: 1446 Merle, 1462 Merla. The name is said to be derived from the Old High German "swamp, moor". From 1615 to 1620, Mörla and the lordship of Oberkranichfeld belonged to Saxe-Weimar. The Schwarzburgs kept the village until 1663, when the Duke of Saxe-Weimar bought it back. In 1825, Mörla finally became part of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. The small roadside village has always had close ties to the town. The village was a parish of the town church and the children went to school in Rudolstadt. The people of Mörla have only been able to bury their dead in the village since 1862, before that there was no cemetery. The village church was built in 1794. Until then, only prayer services had been held in a chapel.

Since the beginning of the 16th century, water has been supplied to Heidecksburg Castle from a spring in Mörla. The cleaning of the spring pond was associated with a fountain festival, which is still celebrated today as the Butzelmann Festival on Whit Monday. The inhabitants of Mörla lived mainly from agriculture. At the turn of the 20th century, some of the inhabitants were already working in Rudolstadt businesses. Mörla was incorporated into Rudolstadt on July 1, 1950, and the development of the slopes between Mörla and Rudolstadt as a residential area meant that the village was now also physically connected to the town.