THIS IS AMERICA'S SMALLEST TOWN (meet the ONLY resident)

This is Elsie. She is the only resident in America's smallest town.

I'm not here because I have to be. I can pack up, go anywhere I wanted to, but this is where I want to be.

We're Karen mace. After spending four years traveling the world and documenting our journey to 100 countries, 2020 brought us back to the US where we bought a converted sprinter van to explore all 50 states. After road tripping our way through Oklahoma, finding the center of America in Kansas.

I'm standing in the exact center of the United States of America.

Yesterday, we arrived in our 24th state of Nebraska.

So normally when we start a video, we have a plan and at least a general idea of how things are going to unfold. But today's different. While we're in Nebraska, our goal is to make a video about the smallest incorporated town in the United States of America. The town of Monowi is located in northern Nebraska and it has one official resident. Her name is Elsie and she's the town's mayor, bartender, and librarian. We chatted with her the other day and explained that we wanted to interview her for a YouTube video and possibly get a tour around the town. She didn't exactly agree to either one of those things, but she was nice enough to invite us to stop by the town and said if we came into the tavern that she runs, she'd be happy to talk to us.

Head south toward East Douglas Street.

So we are heading north to Monowi and we genuinely have no idea what to expect. I figure at worst, we're driving three hours out of the way to eat lunch. And at best, we make friends with Elsie and hear some interesting stories about being the only resident in America's smallest town.

We're about 30 minutes outside of Monowi and we're surrounded by nothing but farmland on all sides. And I'm pretty sure we've seen as many bald eagles as we have cars. Also, every car that we have passed has waved at us, which I just think is so cute. Show me the wave. It's a casual wave. It's not like a super excited wave. Another human.

I feel like it just shows how few people you pass on the road.

I guess we'll just park right in front.

It's crowded today.

If I'm being completely honest, I'm a little nervous to meet the mayor. I think this has a chance of being very uncomfortable, but sometimes a good story requires getting uncomfortable. People must have come from miles around for lunch. There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We're the only non truck in the parking lot.

Such a beautiful day. This must be the Tavern. Here we go.

You don't want to be thinking.

Very awkward for trying to make.

But I think I see Elsie. She's so cute. Hello.

Something to drink?

I'll have a water, please.

Can I have a coke?

Yeah.

Where are you guys from?

We're from Tennessee.

We've heard a lot about you.

Everybody has. I think I'll be back.

I panicked.

So this was very awkward. The tavern was so quiet that between sporadic conversations from the local farmers, you could have heard a pin drop.

Everyone seemed to know each other and we stuck out like sore thumbs, waltzing in in our skinny jeans and carrying.

Our camera set up.

We were hoping Elsie would see our camera and say something along the lines of, oh, you must be those people who called me about the video. But she did not acknowledge it. So we ordered lunch and awkwardly waited on our chance to talk with her about the video. We wanted to be respectful and not interrupt her, so we waited.

And waited and waited.

Turns out she is an extreme, extremely busy lady. She's the tavern's only employee and she single handedly cooked everyone's lunch. After two hours of stretching out lunch as long as we could, we were about to throw in the towel and hit the road when the last lunch customer wandered out.

Yep, you guys take care.

Finally giving us a chance to chat with Elsie. Do you like being known as the only resident in the smallest town in America?

It doesn't impress me any. I mean, I don't see what the big deal is, I say. The only thing that I do appreciate is the fact that it opened up this area that people see there's something in Nebraska besides I 80 going flat across the state. You know, See, they realize that we've got hills and fields and farms and people up here in the northern part. That part I like.

All right, I'm going to give you a full tour of the town, all while standing in the exact same spot. From what we can tell, there are three functioning buildings left in this town. This gray building over here is the tavern where we had lunch. This is the library that was built in honor of her husband. And this is the only other inhabitable building in the town. So my guess is that's Elsie's house. And from what we can see, the other buildings around town, be it houses or trailers or sheds, they're all in some state of disrepair.

I was about a year and a half old when my folks moved to this farm just outside of town here.

And you went from first to Eighth.

Grade here in town. Then I went to high school in Lynch.

Did you ever leave?

Well, we went to Kansas City and then we. We took some more training down in Texas and ended up we worked for Braniff Airline in Dallas, Texas.

What brought you back here?

It's where we both want to be. Same reason I'm still here. That's what I tell people. I'm not here because I have to be. I could pack up, go anywhere I wanted to, but this is where I want to be.

Elsie met her husband Rudy when they were in elementary school in this town.

My husband and I, we. Well, his family moved here. We first met and he was in the fourth grade and I was in the third grade. Then he went into the Air Force. He was great ahead of me, and he spent three years in Europe and then when he got back, they let him go down to Offa Air Base here at Omaha. So when we were first married, we lived down there till he got discharged. Then we came back to this area.

Apparently her husband Rudy was a huge book lover and had thousands of books. But unfortunately he passed away back in 2011, and when he did, she gathered all of his books up and built this library in his honor. So this is Rudy's library.

This is the amazing. If only he could have seen this place. Do you think he ran all of these?

So how long have you owned the tavern?

It'll be 50 years in June.

Congratulations. Do you have a celebration planned?

Everybody else is planning it. I think I made the mistake of one night telling a bunch of the locals, you know, I said, that'll be 50 years. If I'd have shut up, they wouldn't have connected it up. I said, I think it's about time. I just hung it up and oh, boy, did they howl.

How long have you had that cash register?

It came with the bar. It doesn't work. We just use the drawer and it's heavy as all get out. We had a guy from National Cash Register look at it one time and he said it's of a German make and that type was made, he said, most of them before 1900. A guy brought me some pictures or brought them to my husband that when they were building some of the buildings here in town and they figured this one was built like 1902 and three along in there, and there's one interior picture and it looks just exactly like that same cash register sitting there on the back bar. So I think it's been in here all that time.

You know how smells can transport you back to A place. The smell of this library is one of the strongest moments of that I've ever experienced. My grandfather has a pretty big library that's down in his basement. And when I walked in here, I was in the basement of my grandfather's house.

She has all of these newspapers from lynch, which is the nearest town from the years 1940 to 1947, and they're still in such good condition. This is from August 29, 1940.

This was from 2007. It sure does look a lot older than that.

Wow. This is one from 1943. Maybe it's just the smell of old National Geographic magazines, because my grandfather's basement is filled with these. So what does it mean to be an incorporated town?

Do you pay any of your own bills? You take care of your streets, and that's basically what it means. And you just handle your own business, make out your paperwork with the state and so forth?

I heard you tax yourself. Is that true?

No. I don't know what they think about me. Where that got going, I don't have any idea. I said, I just. I pay taxes just like everybody else. I don't know. That is always popping up. I don't know what they mean by it even.

This is the Adventures of Huckleberry FINN. It's copyright 1960, and here on the COVID when it was sold new, it cost a grand total of 50 cents. So I also heard that you were the mayor of the town. Is that true? Mm.

There's paperwork that has to be signed by mayor. I just sign whatever they want me to sign will make any difference to me.

I'm glad one of the rumors is true.

Yeah. One of them said they read somewhere that when it come election time that I put out signs to vote for me. And I said, who in the world made that up? Anybody comes along and wants a job, they can have it be called mayor. I don't care. You know, I just said, what are you talking about?

Kelsey told us that we were free to go explore some of these abandoned houses. Really does feel like a ghost town out here. It all all just feels a little sad.

This isn't very solid.

I'm in.

Wow. There's still an old jacket left here.

There are holes everywhere in this floor. I don't think I'm gonna be getting across that.

Getting out of here before the floor falls through. What's been the progression over the years that's led to you being the town's only resident?

We just don't have anything to hold our young people around here. There is no industry if they're not on the farm or can go into the business that their folks happen to have. Well, nowadays most of them go away to school and then they find other lives. It used to be they just went away to find work.

We are inside the old church that currently looks like it's being used for storage. It's filled with tires and old beehives. At one time though, you can just tell by the windows that this would have been a really pretty church.

Also the floor over here is not, not holding up well.

Bit by bit our grocery stores were closing and it doesn't matter how well off your school is financially and all that. They simply count nine through 12th grade and you have to have a certain number of kids or you've got to start combining with somebody. First they combined sports and then finally they had to combine schools. We got just one from fifth through 12. All goes to one school. I don't know. It makes a lot of bus rides for those little youngsters. I hate to see all that.

This little red building kind of looks like it was an old shed and they have all these random things in here like bicycles, tape players, kids toys and a lot of mason jars.

What's a day in your life look like?

You saw it somewhat. All I don't know is that was really routine today because some days are like that and someday now last third Friday, Saturday and Sunday was just like it was today. Sunday was worse. It was long about 2 o'.

Clock.

I just said I don't want to work here anymore. So somebody said, well tell your boss you want to raise. But then there's a lot of times it's real slow and quiet and I come over and get the coffee ready because I've usually got a few coffee drinkers and some mornings yes and some mornings no. And next thing you know it's evening and got cleaning up to do and finishing off and go home, get ready to start all over.

Tomorrow you're open nine to nine, six.

Days a week by 9:30, 10 o'.

Clock.

I'm always home by then. Normally even then I go to bed till about 11 and up a quarter to seven or so. I don't know how I'm going to do with this time change. So I'll be waking up at the wrong time so might be late getting it open a few mornings, I don't know.

This little blue house seems the most intact and it is so cute.

Is that the church looks more square. They left a lot of stuff behind.

Wow, looks like Somebody's just come through here and taken what they wanted and left what they didn't.

Maybe they thought they were coming back.

So when we first learned that the smallest town in America had one resident, it was an 87 year old woman. My first thought was that you must be lonely. But ever since we've been here.

You.

Haven'T been alone once.

That's what I. That is another thing I get asked, you know, they say, don't you get lonely? And secondly is, aren't you afraid now? I said, who's gonna steal me? I told a German lady, there was a German lady, she used to come. Something must have happened to her because she. About every year she used to come and bug me. But anyway, in her talking to me, I finally said, no, I'm not the least bit afraid. I said, when I was growing up, my dad always told me, well, don't be afraid, because if somebody takes you, steals you, they'll bring you back when it gets light. And she put that into that in this German paper.

That was a unit.

You have plenty of friends around here.

Is what you're saying.

Wow. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 11 cars plus the van. The Monowi Tavern is the place to be on a Tuesday night.

Have you ever changed your prices?

Yeah, when we first came in, of course, now that's almost 50 years ago, there were 25 and 30 cents per beer.

Wow.

You could buy three beers for a dollar. I don't have the expenses and taxes and all of that kind of stuff. This last couple of years, I put a lot more in. I had to put new windows in the doors. And the Coke machine the Coke company gave me when we did that commercial. You want to put what where that there.

Okay. They came here and laid out a banner across the highway on that flat ground there. What's it say? And it covered about five acres of ground. We got World Guinness Book of Records, they were here and did all their measuring in their fallout. And they sent us a copy too, that monowise in the record book.

I asked Elsie where the restroom was and she said, it's an outside one. And I wasn't sure if she meant the restroom was just outside or if it was an actual outhouse.

It's an outhouse. It's literally just a toilet seat that goes into a hole in the ground. So when you left for several years and came back, were you surprised at how much had changed?

No, I don't know. Or if I did, I don't recall that I was particularly surprised. So Many people, you know, all the time, they're moving away, and different ones and so forth.

Thankfully, we quickly made some local friends, and dinner wasn't nearly as awkward as lunch. Even though he doesn't work there, one of our new friends just walked straight into Elsie's kitchen and started frying up one of the local delicacies. Thank you. Insisting that we try it. It looked great. I'm not sure how I'm eating mountain oyster oysters for the second time in one week, but here we are.

These are them.

Mm.

So I know these are testicles. What kind of testicles? I don't know if this is beef or pork. Oh.

So they might be a different kind.

So I'm about to eat probably beef. Unidentified testicles. Rocky, before I bite in, what animal did these come from?

Beef. I thought you said they were pork. Well, nobody sounds confident. Pork. They're pork finger steaks, but they're beef nuts.

Beef nuts.

Probably beef. But I didn't.

I was guessing.

I didn't know. Nobody's got pigs anymore.

Not too much.

They sound nice and crunchy.

They're actually really good. Did your name have anything to do with why they named them Rocky Mountain Oysters?

Where that come from?

All right, my turn. First time eating mountain oysters?

Oh, beef.

Oh, yeah.

Super tasty.

A little better than the skinny ones.

Yeah. He was not impressed with our Oklahoma thinly sliced lamb fingers. The breading has some, like, really nice flavor.

All right, good night, Elsie. Thank you again.

Well.

I wasn't expecting to make so many friends.

Like I said, they just add on and make it an interesting story or what they think's interesting.

This will be the real Elsie story.

We should settle up with you, though. I think I've come out to 39 for US dollars. Not yet. $39?

Oh, gosh, you'd be dragging. Beer's only $2, you know.