‘My day is busy. I get up, get around, drink some coffee, open the bar and start meeting people,’ says Elsie Eiler, the sole resident of Monowi, Nebraska, the smallest town in the US.
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Since June 1971, Elsie has run the village's local bar, serving customers the same ‘strictly off of the grill and out of the deep-fat fryer’ menu and managing the only neighborhood business.
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Now, at 88 years old and with no interest in retirement, Elsie continues as both the bar manager and the town mayor, taking only Mondays off to run errands.
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For more than two decades, Elsie has spent her time between three buildings: her home, the Tavern and Rudy's Library, a building protecting her late husband's collection of 5,000 books.
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‘Nobody else lives here but me, but it's no different [from] being surrounded by people, I guess. There really isn't anywhere else I'd want to be permanently,’ says Elsie.
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Alyssa Schukar