Ballard town government¶

The Ballard town government is the small-town leadership of Ballard, Utah, made up of Mayor Wilford Hiram and city treasurer and school superintendent Deborah Wells, who push a controversial community center and its substation near Sherman Ranch.


Type	Organization (local government)
Aliases	Ballard town leaders; Ballard city government
Members	Wilford Hiram (mayor); Deborah Wells (treasurer and superintendent)
Base	Ballard City Hall
Status	City Hall found abandoned in Walkers 06; the mayor is later revealed to be a skinwalker
First appearance	Walkers 02 (mentioned)

Overview¶

Ballard is a town of a few hundred to about a thousand people with a high school, a courthouse, a general store, a church and mostly double-wides (Walkers 02). Its leaders back a community center with its own substation, built about four miles from the part of town where anything is, in view of the ranch. Locals dislike the mayor and Wells: Walt Murphy says some town leaders "make my skin crawl", and the general store clerk blames the mayor and "the goddamn busybody" Wells (Walkers 02).

Members¶

Mayor Wilford Hiram. A mustached man in big rings who drives a new Cadillac and constantly eats lemon candies from a tin (Walkers 05). His desk at City Hall was covered in Tootsie Roll wrappers (Walkers 06).
Deborah Wells. School superintendent, town treasurer and organizer of church community events, described as the community center's driving force. Maggie, the bartender, went through every grade of school with her and dislikes her (Walkers 03). She is never met on screen.
The Ballard sheriff, Sheriff McDermish, runs a separate one-man office.

History¶

The community center push (Walkers 02 and 03)¶

Walt Murphy tells the team that the town says the community center will swallow the ranch area, but that Alberta Wilmarth will never sell (Walkers 02). Maggie says it is being built half a county away from the community, that Pueblo ruins were bulldozed for it despite a protest, and that Wells "dug in like a child" once people objected (Walkers 03).

The mayor's visit (Walkers 05)¶

Mayor Hiram arrived at the ranch, shook Andrew's hand so hard his rings cut it, offered condolences about the destroyed car and asked why federal agents were in so small a town. He offered the help of "the government of Ballard, Utah". Andrew and Kurt wondered afterward about embezzlement and a "community center scam" (Walkers 05).

City Hall (Walkers 06)¶

The party found City Hall abandoned for days or weeks, with a padlocked fridge full of bags of sugar. When the mayor arrived, he was nervous, chewing a lemon candy. He told them the junkyard lay in Ballard County but outside the municipality, that a fire a few years back had destroyed most of the geological records, and that his candies were a "special order" from Spain (Walkers 06). See Sugar clues.

Replaced (Walkers 07 to 09)¶

In Walkers 07 Andre told Rita that the faction had Andrew's tissue from the cut made by the mayor's ring. In Walkers 08 Andre told the team they now suspected the mayor was one of the creatures, and that what they had found in the trailer suggested he had been taken over a couple of months earlier. In Walkers 09 the mayor appeared in the cavern carrying supplies for the evacuation. Wells's fate is never shown. See the Skinwalker faction and Disappearances in Ballard.

Trivia¶

In Walkers 03 Andre first gave Wells's name as "Misabelle" in Maggie's mouth, then corrected it to Deborah and told the players to retcon it.