Tiny Colorado Town Declared Abandoned After Resignations, Town Hall Brawls, Bad Water Supply

Like a tale out of the Old West, a tiny Colorado town, plagued by fraud allegations, violent town meetings, and a hazardous water supply was deemed abandoned after all its elected officials resigned from their posts, state authorities ruled this week.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Wednesday legally declared the town of Hartman abandoned, ending its official existence as a municipal entity for its population of only 30 and made up of little more than a post office, a water tower, and a sparse residential neighborhood just west of the Kansas border.

Simply, Hartman proved it was not up to the task of governing itself.

The town had been without any form of government since early in 2026 when the three remaining board trustees resigned, and during a town meeting a brawl ensued between four women, three of whom were in their 60s and 70s, according to news reports.

As the Denver Post reported earlier this year:

For years, tensions had been building in this tiny southeast Colorado town of 30, just a dozen miles from the Kansas border. Embezzlement allegations. Lawsuits. Restraining orders. A failed vote to dissolve the town.

Hartman’s weekly Monday evening trustee meetings consistently devolved into yelling matches, residents say. At times, a sheriff’s deputy stood in the chambers to keep the peace. Town business languished amid the shouting.

The state’s declaration came two weeks after a Hartman resident applied for the abandonment because “the town does not have a board of trustees or town clerk, is unable to hold an election, and owns and operates water infrastructure needed to treat and deliver water to residents,” according to the official filing.

Hartman had been provided with over $1 million in grants to work on the water system, which had apparently run out of chlorine to treat it, according to the New York Post.

The town, however, has been unable to secure any contracts with the money since there was no government to administer it.

A Zoom-assisted hearing was held in the secretary of state’s office in Denver on July 13 where the town’s residents voiced opinions both for and against the abandonment application.

This week the secretary of state’s office published a 15-page order determining that abandonment was the best option for residents.

The order cited a state statute and concluded:

Importantly, not determining that the Town of Hartman is abandoned as contemplated by § 31-3-201(1 (b), C.R.S. (2026), would leave the residents in further legal limbo during a health hazard, with no authority to conduct business, hold elections, or fix their water Abandonment is the only legal mechanism in Colorado statute that creates an avenue for residents of the area to receive clean water.

It does not appear for the immediate future that Hartman will become a ghost town.

The Prowers County Board of County Commissioners will now take control of all public roads and alleys in the community and take control of the water infrastructure to provide water that is not hazardous to residents’ health, according to the Post.

Breitbart News contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.