Monowi: Population One
Elsie Eiler is her own government. In Monowi, Nebraska - population: 1 - she serves as mayor, city clerk, treasurer, secretary, and librarian. She grants herself a liquor license for the tavern she owns. She pays taxes to herself. She maintains the town's infrastructure, such as it is, using her own money. When she votes in municipal elections, she's the only one on both the ballot and the voter rolls. Monowi is what happens when everyone leaves but one person refuses. Rudy Eiler, Elsie's husband, died in 2004, dropping the population from 2 to 1. She's stayed, running the Monowi Tavern, maintaining the 5,000-volume library Rudy built, proving that a town can survive on stubbornness alone.
The Decline
Monowi peaked at 150 residents in the 1930s, a small agricultural community serving farms in Boyd County. The story is familiar across the Great Plains: mechanization reduced the need for farm labor, young people left for cities, and small towns withered. Schools closed, churches consolidated, businesses shuttered. By 2000, only Rudy and Elsie remained. When Rudy died in 2004, Elsie became the sole resident of an incorporated municipality. She could have let the town dissolve, merged with a neighboring jurisdiction, moved away. Instead, she stayed. The town that everyone abandoned has one person who won't leave.
The Government
Nebraska requires incorporated municipalities to have certain officials. Elsie fills all the roles. She holds public meetings with herself. She files paperwork with the county. She assesses and pays her own property taxes - a ritual that generates no revenue but satisfies legal requirements. The absurdity is deliberate: Elsie maintains Monowi's incorporation because dissolution would feel like surrender. The town exists because she insists it does. When asked why she doesn't simply move to a larger community, she answers that Monowi is home. The explanation is sufficient. The government of one continues.
The Tavern
The Monowi Tavern is Monowi's only business, a roadhouse serving burgers and beer to travelers on US-20. Elsie opens when she feels like it, closes when she's tired, and serves whoever shows up. Tourists increasingly visit specifically for Monowi - a pilgrimage to America's smallest town, a photo opportunity with the nation's only single-person government. The tavern walls display articles about Monowi, signatures from visitors worldwide, evidence that this tiny place matters to people who've never lived here. Elsie is a good sport about the attention. She didn't seek fame; she just refused to leave.
The Library
Rudy Eiler spent his life collecting books - over 5,000 volumes that he housed in a small building adjacent to the tavern. The Rudy's Library collection ranges from encyclopedias to novels, accumulating without system but with love. After Rudy's death, Elsie maintains the library as his memorial - unlocked, unattended, trusting visitors to browse and return what they borrow. The library receives donations from visitors who learn the story. It's not a proper library by professional standards, but it's a monument to a man who loved reading in a town that loved a man. The books outlasted their collector.
Visiting Monowi
Monowi is located on US-20 in Boyd County, Nebraska, roughly 80 miles northwest of Norfolk. There's nothing to see except the point: the tavern, the library, the handful of empty buildings, and Elsie if she's working. Call ahead if possible - hours are irregular. The town sign with 'Population: 1' makes the essential photograph. The surrounding country is classic Nebraska: rolling farmland, few trees, enormous sky. Lynch, 2 miles east, offers minimal services; Valentine, 90 miles west, is the nearest substantial town. The drive across the Sand Hills is beautiful in its emptiness. Monowi fits the landscape: not much there, but what's there matters.
From the Air
Located at 42.83°N, 98.33°W in Boyd County, northeastern Nebraska. From altitude, Monowi is nearly invisible - a handful of structures at a crossroads, indistinguishable from abandoned farmsteads except that one building still operates. US-20 runs past, connecting the emptiness to more emptiness. The landscape is agricultural: fields, pastures, the few trees that farmers planted as windbreaks. The Missouri River lies 20 miles north; the Sand Hills begin to the west. Nothing about the view suggests that this particular dot on the map is incorporated, governed, and stubbornly inhabited by one person who decided not to leave.