A trip to the smallest town in Nebraska, USA

Rudy's Library and Monowi Tavern.

Last weekend, Sam and I went on a road trip to the North of Nebraska, where we have not traveled much. The destination was Monowi - probably the smallest town in Nebraska.

We started from home some time before noon on Saturday and drove north to South Yankton area.  The first stop was at the Corps of Discovery Welcome Center in South Yankton, from were we took few pictures of Missouri Valley. 

We also stopped at the Gavin's Point Dam on the Missouri river. Then we crossed the river (drove on the dam to South Dakota Side) and came back into Nebraska by crossing the river again on Chief Standing Bear Memorial bridge, Bon Homme, SD.

Around 5:40PM we reached the small town Verdel in Nebraska - population 58.  This is one of the "endangered" small towns in this area of the country due to people migrating to other cities seeking better lives, jobs, etc., etc. We did not see a single person in the town although it looked like there were inhabited homes (trailer-homes) there.  Most buildings were ruins, hammered by weather and invaded by vegetation.  After taking few pictures, we started to drive along.  Around 7PM we reached Monowi, the smallest town in Nebraska - population 1.

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Monowi is located by No 12 highway which runs just below South Dakota - Nebraska boarder (in Monowi, highway 12 is Grant Street).  Exact location - 42.828892,-98.329548.  We stopped at Monowi Tavern, which is the only operating business in town. The owner is Mrs. Elsie Eiler - the only resident in town, and she is the waitress, cook, and bartender in the tavern.  One television - playing local news, few tables, numerous types of beer signs on the walls, a bar with few liquors and beers, small kitchen/grill, and a few "local" visitors/customers eating supper - that's what we saw.  The last picture above shows (from left to right) Rudy's Library, some (I do not know what this is) old business building, and the world-famous Monowi Tavern (yes, that's what it is called).  I am not going to write about history of these buildings because there is sufficient information already available in other web sites (here, here, and here, etc.).

We briefly traveled around the abandoned town.  Except Grant street (which is the highway), all other streets were unpaved, dirt roads.  Fortunately, it has not been raining for few days and our small vehicle could go on them without a problem.

The old jailhouse by the Butte street was in interesting structure.  Although it was old, and in ruins, we could still see the strong attention to details of the building to secure the inmates inside from escaping.  It was very tightly built by wood and covered with metal sheets from outside.  I am sure this might have caused great misery to those who have been "locked-up" inside, in very hot Summers and cold Winters.  The pictures above speak for themselves.. Imagine someone left alone inside this small building.. loneliness, darkness, heat during the day, cold during night.. will make one write crazy things on walls.

We really enjoyed our trip to Monowi.  Elsie and her assistant are some of the nicest people we met during this trip.  You won't receive the kind of hospitality you would receive in Monowi tavern in fancy, big-city restaurants.

You can see some more pictures from our tirp in Sam's web site and my Flickr profile (in few days time).