- We were the smallest town for a while.
Do we still wish we were?
I don't know, to be a population of one
and a population of two, and you're both in the same county,
in the same state.
I think that's pretty wonderful.
- [Man] What is the population of Monowi?
- Population one,
me.
- The population of Gross, Nebraska is one, two.
One, two.
- [Elsie] We don't have enough people.
It's nothing against the towns, nothing against the
people running the businesses.
We simply have run out of people out in this area.
- [Mary] All we have in town is the bank vault
that remains from the Gross State Bank.
Then we have a community Hall.
And then our house and the trailer house across the street.
- We had a high school here.
There was church until, oh, maybe the mid '60s.
- We have the same paperwork and everything to fill out
that Omaha and New York City and every other city has.
We don't have an election for mayor,
I just let him keep that job.
(laughing)
- [Elsie] The young folks or any
that go from here to the city,
they can adjust pretty well and make a good life there,
but you take somebody that's born and raised in the city
and they usually just can't hack it out in this area.
- [Mary] Never gets lonely living in a town of two.
There's always somebody passing through.
Values are different.
You don't have everything at your fingertips,
so you just learn to sit and converse more.
- I'm not here because I have to be.
I could close up and leave here any time I wanted,
go wherever I wanted.
I'm here because I want to be here.