She Is the Only Person Living in This American Town

In a country of 340 million people, one woman lives entirely alone in a town she refuses to let die.

Her name is Elsie Eiler. She is 91 years old. And she is the sole resident, mayor, bartender, librarian, town clerk, treasurer, and secretary of Monowi, Nebraska, the smallest incorporated town in the United States of America.

This is her story. And once you read it, you will not forget it.

A Town of One

As per Wikipedia, Monowi is a tiny village in Boyd County, Nebraska, that received international attention after the 2010 U.S. Census recorded just one resident living there. That resident was Elsie Eiler, and she remains the only person officially counted in the town to this day.

As per Guinness World Records, Monowi holds the official record for the lowest population of any incorporated town in the United States. The village covers just 0.21 square miles of flat Nebraska prairie, located five miles south of the South Dakota border and roughly 195 miles northwest of Omaha.

The town’s roadside sign says everything you need to know. It reads: Monowi, 1.

She Votes for Herself Every Year

Being the only person in a town comes with an unusual set of responsibilities, and an even more unusual set of bureaucratic loops.

As per Upworthy, as the sole resident of Monowi, Eiler elects herself mayor every single year. There is no city council. There are no other residents to weigh in. The entirety of Monowi’s government is just Elsie.

As per Guinness World Records, she also serves as the town’s clerk, treasurer, secretary, and chief librarian, meaning every official decision made in Monowi begins and ends with the same person.

The licensing process for her tavern is particularly amusing. As per Far Out Magazine, when Eiler applies for her annual alcohol and tobacco licences, they are sent to Monowi’s secretary, which is Elsie. She signs them as town clerk, which is also Elsie, and then hands them over to the bar owner. Which is, again, Elsie.

The Monowi Tavern: Open Six Days a Week

Despite living entirely alone, Elsie Eiler is not idle.

As per Voices Heard Foundation, her days revolve around the Monowi Tavern, a weathered bar and grill she has been running since 1971. The tavern is open six days a week, closed Mondays, from 9 in the morning until 9 at night. She personally serves up homemade burgers for $3.50, hot dogs for $1.25, and cold beers for $2, prices that have barely moved in decades.

As per CBS Austin, tourists who are curious about the one-person town can visit the tavern, where Eiler serves burgers, hot dogs, and beers. She does all the dishes herself, since she is also the tavern’s only employee.

As per Voices Heard Foundation, about 50 visitors trickle in daily, some from nearby Lynch, just under seven miles away, others drawn from as far as the Netherlands by Monowi’s unusual fame. Her visitors’ book holds signatures from all 50 states and more than 60 countries.

The Library She Built for Her Husband

The most quietly beautiful part of Elsie’s story has nothing to do with politics or paperwork.

As per Guinness World Records, in 2005, one year after her husband Rudy passed away, Elsie opened Rudy’s Library, a collection of approximately 5,000 books left behind by her late husband, who was an avid reader throughout his life. The library is housed in a shed next to the tavern, and operates entirely on the honor system. Anyone who stops in can borrow a book.

As per Wikipedia, Elsie met Rudy at the one-room schoolhouse in Monowi when she was in the third grade and he was in the fourth. They married, raised two children in the village, and ran the tavern together for decades. When Rudy died in 2004, Elsie became Monowi’s only resident, and she has kept the town alive for every year since.

Monowi Was Not Always This Small

It is easy to look at Monowi today, three functioning buildings, one resident, a crumbling grain elevator, and assume it was always a ghost town. It was not.

As per Voices Heard Foundation, Monowi was founded in 1902 and platted in 1903 with the arrival of the railroad. At its peak in the 1930s, around 150 people called it home. The village had a school, a church, grocery stores, a restaurant, and even a grain elevator that served the surrounding farming community.

As per CBS Austin, the town was a bustling railroad community, but like so many small towns across the Great Plains, it lost its younger residents to larger cities offering better employment opportunities. Farming conditions worsened. Jobs were lost to automation. The school closed in 1974. The post office and last grocery stores shut between 1967 and 1970.

As per Voices Heard Foundation, by 1980 the population had fallen to just 18. By 2000, only two people remained: Rudy and Elsie. When Rudy died in 2004, Monowi became the only incorporated town in the United States with a single resident.

She Keeps the Lights On, Literally

As per Voices Heard Foundation, Elsie pays herself $500 in yearly taxes, money that goes directly toward keeping Monowi’s three remaining streetlights glowing. She also files an annual municipal road plan with the state to secure funding for the lights, because without her paperwork, the town would lose its official standing entirely.

As per Upworthy, Eiler once told travel vloggers who asked whether she collects taxes from herself: “I pay taxes like everybody else.” The statement captures something essential about who she is. She does not see herself as playing a role. She sees herself as doing her job.

“Too Tough to Die”

As per Guinness World Records, Elsie has said of herself and her town: “Like Monowi, I’m too tough to die.”

That quote says more about the American spirit than almost anything you will read in a political headline this week.

But she is also honest about what comes next. As per Guinness World Records, Elsie knows that when she is gone, Monowi goes with her. “If I let myself sit and think about it, I feel sad that the time is going to come that I can’t be in there,” she has said. “I don’t know what the future holds for here, but I’d like to see it keep going. Otherwise, it’s just going to be another bunch of shambled buildings on the side of the road.”

For now, the lights are still on in Monowi. The burgers are still $3.50. The library still runs on the honor system. And Elsie Eiler is still there, mayor, bartender, librarian, treasurer, clerk, and the last living thread connecting a small Nebraska town to everything it once was.