Tyler

In 1999, the town of Tyler still had a place on the Montana map, a place 18 miles south of Grass Range where the gravel Tyler Cutoff Road connects to Upper Flatwillow Road. In its hey day in the early 1900s the town had a saloon, store, hotel and dance hall run by Charles Tyler. Tyler took over the saloon from Manitoba Pete. He established the post office, named it Tyler and became the first postmaster.

The post office and saloon sat in the middle of the N Bar Ranch, which was owned at the time by Tom Cruse, an Irish immigrant who purchased the ranch from Newman brothers after the brutal winter of 1886 and 1887. Cruse had made his fortune in the gold fields around Helena. Billionaire Tom Siebel, who made his fortune in Silicon Valley, purchased the 62,000-acre ranch in 2000 and in 2011 he sold it for $45 million. The post office closed in 1940 and the town remained on the map until 2000.