Monowi, Nebraska. Population: 1.
Big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston are well known to people across the U.S. Even if you've never been to any of these cities, you likely know where they are and can name some facts about them. Small towns, on the other hand, tend to fly under the radar, and the smaller the town, the less likely people are to have heard of them.
But one small U.S. town in particular is so small that it barely even exists. Monowi, Nebraska (pronounced MON-oh-why) has a whopping population of one. As in only one person officially lives there. Her name is Elsie Eiler, she's 89 years old, and since her husband died in 2004, she's been the sole resident of the tiny incorporated village five miles south of the South Dakota border.
As the sole resident, Eiler "elects" herself as mayor every year, and all of the official town duties fall on her shoulders, including record-keeping, licensing, maintenance and more. Some reports say she collects her own taxes from herself, but Eiler told travel vloggers Kara & Nate that that's not true. "I pay taxes like everybody else," she said.
What is true is that there's no city council to make decisions, no other residents to worry about—the entirety of the town is just Eiler, her home, her tavern, and the library she opened in honor of her late bookworm husband. And her playing every role in town makes for some humorous chains of bureaucratic steps.
“When I apply to the state for my liquor and tobacco licenses each year, they send them to the secretary of the village, which is me,” she explained to the BBC in 2020. “So, I get them as the secretary, sign them as the clerk and give them to myself as the bar owner.”
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Though it's never been large, Monowi has not always been this small. Nearly a century ago, it was a thriving farming community and home to 150 people. People riding the Elkhorn Railroad could stop there, and the town had all the normal amenities one would expect in a town—grocery stores, restaurants, a one-room schoolhouse and even a prison.
But Monowi was a casualty of the collapse of rural communities in the Great Plains after WWII. Eiler herself left to work for an airline in Kansas City, wanting to become a flight attendant. She didn't care for city life, thought, and at 19, she returned home to Monowi. She married Rudy, who she met when he was in the 4th grade and she was in the 3rd grade. They raised two kids in Monowi, and in 1971 fixed up the tavern that had belonged to Eiler's father.
Eiler still runs the tavern, personally serving up homemade burgers, hot dogs, and cheeseballs to the patrons who come from neighboring communities or who happen to be passing through the town. She also does all the dishes, as she's the tavern's only employee. As of 2021, the tavern was open 9:00am to 9:00pm six days a week.
She's also the librarian at Rudy's Library, which houses 5,000 titles and works on the honor system.
Eiler created Rudy's Library in her husband's honor.Bkell/Wikimedia Commons
The rest of Monowi is made up of dilapidated, abandoned buildings, and the town's church, which last held a funeral when Eiler's father died, is filled with old tires and beehives. So what is it that keeps Eiler here? Essentially, it's home.
"I'm not here because I have to be," Eiler told Kara & Nate. "I could pack up and go anywhere I wanted to, but this is where I want to be." She told Nebraska Public Media the same thing. "I mean, basically I'm happy here. This is where I really—I want to be here, or I wouldn't stay here."
