# Incorporated towns with no population **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 9, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301 "2019-04-09T21:38:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/1 "2019-04-09T21:38:05Z")
Every once in a while, I hear about a very small town, one with only one or two people living in it. But they’re incorporated, so the people/person there have to perform all the functions of the town (be mayor, file reports with the state, etc.). They’re usually very rural places. So what happens when these people pass away and their heirs don’t want to live in the town? And neither do whoever buys the place, if they can even sell it. So an incorporated town with no population. Does the state just disincorporate it? And what about counties in the same situation? That may not have happened (yet) but may sometime in the future. Well, [Kalawao County](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalawao_County,_Hawaii) is a special situation (it’s a former leper colony that they don’t let anyone new move to) and it should be depopulated within a couple decades at most. But I’m thinking more about the High Plains area. For example, [Greeley County](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeley_County,_Kansas) in Kansas has less than 1300 people and is shrinking steadily. What happens if it gets too underpopulated to function as a county? ---
**Author:** ![Bayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bayaker/32/3454_2.png) [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/2 "2019-04-09T21:51:52Z")
Here’s how Texas handled it once per Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Loving is the only county in Texas to be incorporated twice, first in 1893 and again in 1931. Its initial organization was effected by a canal company founded in Denver, Colorado, and appears to have been based upon fraud and willful misrepresentations made by the founders to state officials.[6] After a local landowner hired a New York City firm to investigate alleged improprieties in county government, the company’s organizers fled, taking with them all the county records. The state legislature subsequently disincorporated Loving in 1897, attaching it to Reeves County. > > Oil was discovered in 1921, leading to a population increase in Loving County. By 1930, it had 195 residents, mostly living in what would become the town of Mentone, which became the county seat when Loving was reconstituted in 1931. By 1933, the population had peaked at 600, only to begin a steady decline that has continued until recently. The current population of Loving County is estimated at 134, and I remember at one time (1990 census?) it was 56 It makes sense that the state would dissolve the corporate entity and just merge it with an adjacent county, and a dissolved city would just revert back to unincorporated county land. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/3 "2019-04-09T21:56:06Z")
Countes (& towns) were created by the state; presumably the state could also decide to dissolve them/merge them with neighbors, etc. And the state almost certainly would; there are governmentl functions that need to be done. For example, in many states the county is the unit of government responsible for collecting property taxes. The state has a strong interest in seeing that this gets done. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/4 "2019-04-09T21:57:52Z")
Right. Obviously it will depend on the state’s incorporation laws. If the city government isn’t fulfilling the requirements, the state will nullify the incorporation. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/5 "2019-04-09T22:06:07Z")
Yep. The state government has absolute power to establish and abolish municipalities as they see fit. Whatever home rule privileges the town or city might have are devolved from the authority of the state legislature and can be revoked at will. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/6 "2019-04-09T22:38:39Z")
A couple of towns in my state ran into financial trouble, and disincorporated. They are now treated like rural areas. Police work is done by the county sheriff’s office, firefighting is done by a volunteer fire department. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/7 "2019-04-10T13:29:11Z")
In the Great Depression, several towns around here were disincorporated. They still had a population but had no means to carry out normal town activities. In modern times, the requirements of state and federal laws to ensure certain actions are taken and monies allocated to them properly spent make keeping a town incorporated even harder. So some decide to disincorporate on their own. E.g., [Juntura, Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juntura,_Oregon). [Dixie, Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie,_Baker_County,_Oregon) holds a place in my heart. It’s population listed on the sign was 2 in 1960. It was basically a house and a dinner. When I-80N (I-84) was being put in it was in the way so the dinner was put on wheels and moved a bit away. There it sat for a number of years. Don’t know when it was official disincorporated. I remember a long time ago reading about the small town we fled when I was a kid and they closed down the local school. (Making it a _long_ drive to the nearest school.) An article in the “big city” paper later on talked about how the mayor (a friend of our family) got the job since he was the only one who could be talked into taking it. The state gave the town a few hundred bucks for bicycle paths. He had on idea how he was going to legitimately spend it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/8 "2019-04-10T14:07:03Z")
Didn’t Nevada once try to establish a county with no population? IIRC, it was around the Yucca Mountain waste disposal site, with the intention that that way, there’d be no “locals” in the county who could object to it. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/9 "2019-04-10T14:33:36Z")
City of Industry, CA was incorporated intending to have as few residents as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/10 "2019-04-10T14:34:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Didn’t Nevada once try to establish a county with no population? Bullfrog County ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/11 "2019-04-10T14:48:59Z")
With no residents there would be no voters or anyone to stand for office. Seems like once a mandated election rolls around and no one wins this thing will work itself out. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/12 "2019-04-10T15:44:43Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > It was basically a house and a dinner. When I-80N (I-84) was being put in it was in the way so the dinner was put on wheels and moved a bit away. There it sat for a number of years. Must have been a really big dinner! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/13 "2019-04-10T17:15:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Didn’t Nevada once try to establish a county with no population? IIRC, it was around the Yucca Mountain waste disposal site, with the intention that that way, there’d be no “locals” in the county who could object to it. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Bullfrog County Right, I’d forgotten about [that one](http://mapamericana.com/2018/04/10/bullfrog-county-a-lesson-in-loopholes/). But it isn’t really what I’d had in mind for the OP. Note that it wasn’t that there’d be no locals to vote against the waste disposal site, but rather that the state government would control it outright (there was no privately owned land in the county) and could set the tax rate to be prohibitively high. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/14 "2019-04-13T14:18:56Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > With no residents there would be no voters or anyone to stand for office. Seems like once a mandated election rolls around and no one wins this thing will work itself out. You could have a set-up comparable to that of the [Reedy Creek Improvement District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_District), the jurisdiction in which Disney World lies. Its governing body is elected by the landowners of the district, all of which are Disney employees. Even though the area is part of normal counties with normal voters in it (Osceola and Orange), it does have some public powers over the territory. The whole thing sounds a little bit like [Old Sarum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Sarum_(UK_Parliament_constituency)), the most notorius of the pre-1832 “rotten boroughs” in the UK. Essentially it was an uninhabited hill which formed a parliamentary constituency, electing two Members of Parliament for the House of Commons. It was operating under a franchise where the tenants of certain defined plots had the right to vote; in practice, in each election the owner of the hill would assign these plots to trusted straw men, effectively holding the power to simply appoint the two MPs. Elections in Old Sarum were so absurd that towards the end, before the abolition of such boroughs in 1832, they had become a kind of tourist attraction. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/15 "2019-04-13T15:43:01Z")
I also read of a case a few years ago of an election in the US with only one legitimate voter (in some sort of subdivision of a city). It was basically a business district, and thought to have no residents. The law was that in such a subdivision, there were certain questions that could be voted on by all of the residents of the subdivision, or by all of the property owners if there were no residents. The businessmen who owned the properties wanted something about a local sales tax, and thought they’d be able to vote it in with no problem, except that it turned out that there was actually a single resident there, who therefore got to decide for herself. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/16 "2019-04-13T17:55:53Z")
I heard about the same thing, Chronos, but can’t remember much more. Pretty sure it was in California, though. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2019, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/17 "2019-04-14T04:06:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I also read of a case a few years ago of an election in the US with only one legitimate voter (in some sort of subdivision of a city). It was basically a business district, and thought to have no residents. The law was that in such a subdivision, there were certain questions that could be voted on by all of the residents of the subdivision, or by all of the property owners if there were no residents. The businessmen who owned the properties wanted something about a local sales tax, and thought they’d be able to vote it in with no problem, except that it turned out that there was actually a single resident there, who therefore got to decide for herself. A community improvement district in [Columbia, Missouri](https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-a-gerrymandering-attempt-20150831-column.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2019, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/18 "2019-04-15T19:21:55Z")
Counties and cities are dissolved all the time. [Here](https://www.raogk.org/counties/southdakota/#extinct) is a list of the counties in my state of South Dakota that were dissolved and absorbed by other counties. The list of extinct cities is even longer. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/19 "2019-04-16T05:50:16Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > City of Industry, CA was incorporated intending to have as few residents as possible. That’s true, but as far as that type of incorporation goes, Industry has been able to maintain a relatively normal existence, and doesn’t really raise any eyebrows. In comparison, the [City of Vernon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Corruption_and_disincorporation_campaign), which likewise incorporated solely to serve business, and has an even lower population, (in fact, the lowest population of any incorporated city in California), has become so corrupted by these circumstances that both the California legislature and the L.A. Board of Supervisors are seeking its disincorporation. Unlike the other small, incorporated cities in this area adjacent to the southeast edge of the Los Angeles, known as “the [Corridor of Corruption](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article148912624.html),” no population of real residents has ever been allowed to establish there, so there’s no way for a voting public to change anything. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301/20 "2019-05-20T00:35:01Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > City of Industry, CA was incorporated intending to have as few residents as possible. The leaders of City of Commerce, City of Industry’s cousin, seem to take their duties of incorporation very seriously: (L.A. Times: “[Brawl erupts at convention for local-government officials at Indian Wells resort](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-convention-brawl-resort-20190519-story.html).”) [QUOTE=L.A. Times] The melee occurred at an annual seminar of the California Contract Cities Assn., an advocacy group of cities that contract for public services, such as firefighting and law enforcement. . . Soria said in his statement that he was told that Mendoza and a [City of Commerce] council colleague, Ivan Altamirano, were having a conversation that had “become elevated” so they “went to the area to defuse any potential conflict.” He said that when he approached, he saw Mendoza on the floor “apparently unconscious,” and Altamirano “standing nearby with a facial injury.” [/quote] [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incorporated-towns-with-no-population/832301.md?page=2)