You are browsing the Radio-Canada website
Go to main contentGo to footerNavigation aidStart of main content
ShareOpen the sharing window
Share on X (Twitter) (new window)
Share via email
Close the sharing window
Welcome to Monowi, Nebraska. At 90, Elsie Eiler is the only resident of the village, which is more than 300 kilometers north of Omaha, the state’s largest city.
A village that has become a ghost in the heart of the plains of a predominantly agricultural state. The sign sets the tone: You won’t meet too many people here, apart from the numerous cattle grazing in the pastures.
The only business in Monowi must belong to Elsie, the mayor. This is the tavern she opened with her husband in 1971. The only business that still exists, apart from the local motorcycle club, which has long been in ruins.
She is probably the oldest active bar owner in the country. Six days a week, twelve hours a day, she works to serve transients the coldest beer in the village and the best cheeseburgers in the region.
Leaning against the bar is a regular, Edward Key, a farmer who lives in Verdel, a village of about twenty residents 10 kilometers from Monowi. Since there isn’t much in the area, he appreciates the tavern and especially Elsie, who faithfully defends her post at this meeting point in the middle of nowhere.
Since the death of her husband Rudy, who died in 2004, Elsie Eiler has been looking after the place alone. If he were still alive, we would both still be here, working, because that’s what we wanted to do. That’s what I want to do and I’m sure he would have respected me for that.
Next to the tavern is the city library in honor of Rudy. It includes hundreds of books that belonged to him. The building remains open to residents. A way for Elsie to keep her late husband’s spirit alive in the town where she has lived since childhood.
Thousands came through Monowi to meet this unique mayor. People from more than 70 different nationalities have signed the tavern’s guestbook, including Californian Elsie Leiler, who couldn’t resist meeting her namesake, and Indiana native Erin McGouldrick on a cross-country road trip.
Interestingly, while Elsie Eiler is the only resident, the US Census Bureau added another resident to its Monowi data several years ago. A gesture, they say in the office, to protect their privacy and the confidentiality of data. The census is stupid, Elsie replies. I have no idea what it was. I guess no one has been here but me for 20 years.
Elsie Eiler wouldn’t leave her little kingdom for anything in the world. Even if she regrets the slow death of villages like hers. The few houses still standing are being swallowed up or swallowed up by vegetation. The reason is the lack of jobs for young people, who have all migrated to warmer climes.
Monowi was founded in 1903 when the Mason, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad expanded to this location. A post office was set up there in 1902 and remained in operation until 1967. From the 1970s onwards the railway was dismantled, which meant the death sentence for the village.
Roger Kohn, who has known Elsie Eiler for 50 years, does not hide his concern for the future of Monowi. We don’t have many places anymore where we can get together and eat a sandwich or a burger. He is afraid that the restaurant will one day close when the mayor inevitably dies. Unless, he says, she does something else that no one else has done, that she lives forever.
Even though her back is becoming more and more bent and her gait is slower than before, Elsie Eiler is holding out for the time being and taking care of the customers at her tavern. She continues to fill out the paperwork for her tavern license, which she apparently grants herself automatically. After all, she is the mayor.
Monowi is part of this rural America that is gradually dying and being abandoned by decision-makers and politicians who allow the existing infrastructure to deteriorate. Migration from these Midwestern regions to larger centers continues.