Like Nothing’s There – This Missouri Town Has a Population of 0

I found something or actually someplace that I cannot explain. It's a Missouri town or at least it used to be, but the official population is zero. It's like nothing was ever there, but I can prove there used to be.

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How can you have a town or even village if no one lives there? That's a great question which I have no good answer for, but I can point you to a place in Missouri where that's actually happened.

If you look at Missouri on Google Maps and zoom in to the area just to the northwest of Troy, you'll see what looks like a town because it is.

What you're looking at is Cave, Missouri. It's a real town, but there's a catch. No one lives there.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Cave, Missouri:

Cave is a City in Lincoln County, Missouri, United States. The population was 5 at the 2010 census.[4] However, As of the 2020 census, the population is 0, making it the smallest incorporated community in the U.S state of Missouri.

I've looked for evidence of what used to be there, but can find nothing and no one that even knows anything about it. It's like it never existed, yet it does. Is this some former ghost town from the 1800's? Nope. Cave, Missouri was incorporated in 1980 and in 1990 had 10 people who called it home. Now...they're gone.

There are almost no buildings in Cave, Missouri either according to a satellite view of the area.

Why is Cave, Missouri still a town or even a village if no one lives there? Your guess is as good as mine. It's another one of those strange Missouri mysteries.