State's Smallest Town Holds Onto Status
Courtsey of The Sunday World-Herald
and author Paul Hammel

HANGING ON: Elsie and Rudy Eiler are the only people left in Monowi, Neb. along Highway 12 near the South Dokota Border. Their Tavern is the town's only business. But the Couple keep Monowi incorporated out of pride and for practical reasons.

Monowi, Neb. - Blackened by two prairie fires in the 1910s, depressed when the railroad pulled out and slowly drained by the exodus of folks to better jobs elsewhere, this old town should have died a long time ago. Monowi, though, stubbornly hangs on because of the tenacity, imagination and hospitality of its residents.

Both of them.

Rudy and Elsie Eiler are the only people left in this collection of sagging, vacant buildings hidden among the trees and tall brome grass along Nebraska Highway 12 just south of the South Dakota border.

They operate the town's only business, the Monowi Tavern, living in the town's only occupied dwelling - a trailer house up the hill, just past the two badly tilting outhouses that serve the tavern's clientele.

Each spring, the Eilers post legal notices and hold a town meeting, appointing each other to the town board - he as chairman, the unofficial mayor, and she as clerk-treasurer.

"We've got one boss and one underling," said Rudy, 67, between puffs on a Wm. Penn cigar.

How often are town board meetings held?

"Every night," said Rudy.

"We were going to put up a sign that says: 'Monowi, a town of good people and one grouch,'" said Elsie, 66. "We could take turns."

With a population of 2, Monowi appears safe in its quest to remain the smallest incorporated village in Nebraska, one step - and two fewer residents - ahead of the nearby, one-tavern town of Gross, which now has four residents.

Monowi also is closing in on the title of smallest town in the United States, though a town in Oklahoma - Norge - is still listed as a village even though its population is zero.

But even with only a pair of people, Monowi has managed to swim among the big fish in the pond of national publicity.

As in 1992, when Elsie made Paul Harvey's national radio commentary show.

She had written Harvey to complain about the U.S. Census Bureau, which made numerous mistakes in counting the town's then-eight residents.

Even though Elsie personally watched the local census taker fill out their forms, Monowi's official census came out with only six residents. The number of children (three) and married couples (two) in town also were miscounted.

In 1995, filmmaker Ken Burns visited town, scouting for pristine locations on the nearby Missouri River for his public television documentary on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Rudy obliged, taking Burns and his troupe on a bumpy ride to the river in his four-wheel-drive pickup. That segment of the river, one of the last unspoiled stretches of the Missouri, was shown frequently during the show.

"My name is on the list of credits," said Rudy.

Later that year, Monowi made news again when a portrait of its residents ran on the front dust jacket of a book, "Our Smallest Towns: Big Falls, Blue Eyes, Bonanza and Beyond" by Dennis Kitchen. The town even made a segment on the CBS "Sunday Morning" show.

Being one of America's smallest towns is not something Monowi's citizens play up. There are no "smallest town" signs, T-shirts or mugs, no "smallest town" festival. Just an understanding that Monowi is one of the smallest towns, and an endless string of stories about it.

"We've had a lot of fun with it," said Elsie. "We've gotten letters from all over from people who've heard about Monowi or heard the story on Paul Harvey."

Mostly, Monowi's tavern is a good gathering place for local farmers and residents of nearby towns, a place to exchange the latest joke or news about rainfall and cattle prices.

Rudy mans the bar and weighs aluminum cans people bring in for recycling, a side business for the Eilers. Elsie is the waitress and cook, slinging burgers and, at feeds twice each winter, fried bluegill caught in local ponds.

"Elsie's got the best steaks in the county," said Dick Christensen of Verdel.

Monowi's weed-lined, gravel main street - Broad Street - is patrolled by the town dog, George, a yellow mutt who sleeps in a culvert and hasn't been touched by a person since he was dropped off in town 13 years ago.

"I bet you 10 bucks you can't get close to him," said Rudy.

The story of Monowi (pronounced MAH-no-why) is the story of many small towns in Nebraska.

Named for an Indian word for "flower" or "prairie flower," it was founded with great promise in 1902 when the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad line went through. A post office was moved to town. A large cattle-loading facility brought ranchers from a broad distance.

From behind the bar, Rudy produces two photographs from 1910 that show two rows of businesses on either side of the main street. A Methodist church was built that year, too, he said. "I'm gathering as much Monowi history as I can," Rudy said. "There ain't much." The history books say that the town's population peaked at 123 in 1930, but the Eilers think it might have been higher before that. Two prairie fires, the last in 1912, devastated the town, and the population began a slow spiral downward - 99 in 1955, 18 in 1980 and 8 in 1990. "It's kind of sad, yes, but it's a matter of economics," said Elsie. "There isn't anything to keep any young people here."

By 1971, when the Eilers bought the tavern, there were only 22 residents. That same year, the post office was closed and moved to Lynch. The local grocery store shut down soon afterward.

The 1990s saw further decline. The family of Pat and Roger Brockman, all five of them, moved to a new earth home just outside of town about five years ago.

"We call it suburban Monowi," said Pat Brockman, who teaches school in Lynch.

A year ago, another Monowian, Agnes Lemmons, 90, moved to a new house in O'Neill, about 50 miles away.

"She had to come over the other day and check on one of her cats she lost. He's still here," said Elsie.

So now it's just Rudy and Elsie, a vacant grain elevator, a long-abandoned school, the old church (now used for storage) and a handful of vacant homes in various stages of losing their paint and being covered over by trees and brush.

There is one other business in town, sort of. Across Highway 12, Rudy has a collection of empty trailers and buildings, from which locals salvage parts on an as-needed basis.

"I got an almost brand-new float for a toilet over there the other day," said Howard Grimm, whose ancestors ran a hat shop and cream station in Monowi during the boom years before World War I.

"We don't have a Kmart. We have an E-mart (for Eiler). It's open 24 hours a day."

While some dying towns have voted to quit being incorporated because of the paperwork, the Eilers keep Monowi incorporated for reasons of pride and practicality.

Because it is incorporated, the liquor license for the tavern goes through the town board instead of a faraway council of county commissioners. So each year, the Eilers sign the renewal papers for their own liquor license.

They have deferred the annual legal chore of approving one- and six-year road plans for the village to a county highway supervisor, who handles the job for a handful of small towns in the area.

As an incorporated village, the town gets checks every year from the state - about $85 in general state aid, $363 from the municipal equalization fund, $14.79 from an infrastructure improvement effort and about $3,100 a year for road improvements.

Elsie, the village treasurer, sends all the road money to Boyd County, whose crews plow the road through Monowi. The rest of the money is used to pay the town's monthly light bill, $27.21, and build up a reserve to maintain the town well.

"We've got it built up enough that there isn't a problem if the town well goes bad," said Elsie.

Monowi has seen one windfall as a municipality: In 1990, it received $10,000 from the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission as part of the "incentive funds" for towns in Boyd County, which had been picked as the site for a waste repository.

"It was pretty neat," Elsie said. "Any town was eligible for that. They just had to apply."

About $4,000 was used to spruce up the town and build a new well house for the town well. The rest went to the county hospital in Lynch.

Today, Monowi plugs on. It appears that it will have a good hold on the title of Nebraska's smallest incorporated town when the 2000 Census is completed. Gross, population 4, will lose one more resident this fall when one of the four Finnegans, Lisa, goes off to college.

The third-smallest town in Nebraska, Nenzel, population 8, plans on growing. Town Clerk Theresa Nollette said the census missed three homes in 1990 that should give the town five more residents in the 2000 count.

There are no competitors in Iowa. The smallest town there is Delphos, population 23.

In Monowi, no one is beating the drum of economic development or population growth. If someone wanted to move in, Rudy said, that would be fine. He'd sell them a lot or two. If not, so be it.

"It don't make much difference," said Rudy. "Life just goes on."

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