Abandoning Hartman

Editor’s note: This episode contains some explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. A town with no mayor, no trustees, no clerk, and no publicly funded water system.In our seventh episode this season, we travel four hours east of Denver to Hartman, Colorado, where a modern-day "Hatfields and McCoys" feud drove the entire town board to quit.After years of bitter infighting, contested elections, financial disputes, and a physical altercation at a town meeting, the tiny plains community's government effectively collapsed. Hartman has become an unlikely case study in how a century-old abandonment law leaves residents to confront what happens when a town can no longer govern itself.Can Hartman be saved, or has it already become a ghost town in waiting?This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens. Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.