Old Timers would like any Old time History on this town
By Don Baker Carlyle Carlyle was a small, farm town on the Northern Pacific branch line that originated in Beach, North Dakota. It was typical of the time that the area settled at the turn of the century, featuring grain elevators, a saloon, post office, mercantile, hotel, and school. It is located about a mile west of the North Dakota state line and about a mile north of the Fallon County line in Wibaux County. Its southern neighbor, Ollie, but six miles away sin Fallon County, Montana. 221 citizens called it home in 1940. Today there are none. And all that remains are the grain elevators and the school. Carlyle is twenty miles north and five miles east of Baker. Charles Abrams tells the story of settling in Montana in 1909. I was born in Mclean County, Illinois, south and west of Chicago, close to Bloomington. My father especially liked race horses. We came west in 1909, when dad bought 160 acres north of Beach, North Dakota. The following year he rented 160 acres close to Carlyle, Montana. There was a well on the land and he took a cowhide, a butcher knife and a pair of overalls out of the bottom of that well. We came here in two railroad immigrant cars. There were four horses, a Jersey milk cow, a couple of heifers, two or three pigs, some chickens and a few pigeons. My two older brothers and I rode in the immigrant car, a Northern Pacific box car. We were held up in St. Paul where the cows were tested. While we were there another car came with the post hole diggers weren't very deep, but our deep well was drilled and it was one hundred twenty feet deep. Ollie was another little town on the railroad that is abandoned today. It was seven miles father south. Both Ollie and Carlyle had banks in their early days and the vault is still visible in what used to be OIlie. Neither bank went broke, but when things got tough, both of them simply closed their doors. Quite a few farmers in these parts went into moonshine during prohibition. It was about the only thing that paid in cash. Many of the people who lived in this part of Wibaux and Fallon Counties were originally from Princeton, Minnesota. The man who ran the lumber yard in Carlyle was named Charlie Slater and I remember him as absolutely fearless. His son ran the restaurant and hotel in Ollie. The foreman of the Lang Ranch, a fellow named Al Benson, came into town one day to host a drunk. Slater's room was at the top of the stairs at the hotel and when Benson checked in, he wanted Charlie to get drunk with him. Charley wasn't in the right frame of mind to drink with Benson and the two or three ranch hands that were with him. Later Benson came by again. Charlie grabbed his shot gun and pointed it at Benson, telling him to leave in no uncertain terms. Benson lifted a slop jar over his head to throw at S1ater. The shot gun blast shattered the stop jar, dumping its contents all over Benson. Benson paid his bill the next day and returned to the Lang Ranch. Such was life on the prairie.
The townsite of Carlyle is now entirely included in a ranch.
By Don Baker 