diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index c421a7bd493..79f4e2adb37 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -14,7 +14,6 @@ graft src
 graft depends
 graft winbuild
 graft docs
-prune docs/_static
 
 # build/src control detritus
 exclude .appveyor.yml
diff --git a/docs/Guardfile b/docs/Guardfile
index f8f3051ed9e..5055d0aa5f0 100755
--- a/docs/Guardfile
+++ b/docs/Guardfile
@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ from livereload.compiler import shell
 
 Task.add('*.rst', shell('make html'))
 Task.add('*/*.rst', shell('make html'))
-Task.add('_static/*.css', shell('make clean html'))
 Task.add('_templates/*', shell('make clean html'))
 Task.add('Makefile', shell('make html'))
 Task.add('conf.py', shell('make html'))
diff --git a/docs/_static/.gitignore b/docs/_static/.gitignore
deleted file mode 100644
index b1f9a2ade2a..00000000000
--- a/docs/_static/.gitignore
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-# Empty file, to make the directory available in the repository
diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index 0eb137daa98..c392b3524b1 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@
 # Add any paths that contain custom static files (such as style sheets) here,
 # relative to this directory. They are copied after the builtin static files,
 # so a file named "default.css" will overwrite the builtin "default.css".
-html_static_path = ["_static", "resources"]
+html_static_path = ["resources"]
 
 # Add any extra paths that contain custom files (such as robots.txt or
 # .htaccess) here, relative to this directory. These files are copied