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Ringling, Mt

Ringling, Ringling, slippin' away

Only forty people livin' there today

Streets are dusty and the bank has been torn down

It's a dyin' little town

 

Church windows broken, that place ain't been used in years

Jail don't have a sheriff or a cell

And electric trains they run by maybe once or twice a month

Easin' it on down the Musselshell

 

Ringling, Ringling, slippin' away

Only forty people livin' there today

'Cause the streets are dusty and the bank has been torn down

It's a dyin' little town

 

And across from the bar there's a pile of beer cans, been there twenty-seven years

Imagine all the heartaches and tears in twenty-seven years of beer

So we hopped back in the rent-a-car and we hit the cruise control

Pretty soon the town was out of sight

But we left behind a fat barmaid, a cowboy and a dog

Bracing for a Ringling Friday night

 

Ringling, Ringling you're just slippin' away

I wonder how many people will be there a year from today

'Cause the streets are dusty and the bank has been torn down

It's a dyin' little town

It's a dyin' little town

 

A great song by Jimmy Buffett - 'Ringling, Ringling' - from his 1974 album 'Living and Dying in 3/4 Time'

 

Since it's one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums - I just HAD to visit here on my Memorial Day trip to Montana.

 

Torrential rains accompanied me on this leg of my trip - so the dusty streets described in the song had turned to mud. The church has been rebuilt, but the sheriff and jail are long gone. Sorry, I didn't check to see if the pile of beer cans was still there. Also, since I was there on Saturday, I figured the "Ringling Friday night" might have been too much, so I didn't bother the barmaid, cowboy or dog either.

 

Ringling was once the southern terminus for the Yellowstone Park and White Sulphur Springs Railroad and was a station stop on the transcontinental main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (The Milwaukee Road) - the tracks have long since been removed, but this abandoned depot remains ...

 

John Ringling, namesake of the town and member of the Ringling Brothers circus family, was the builder and president of the Yellowstone Park and White Sulphur Springs Railroad and a considerable land owner in the area.

 

I'm quite certain that a few "heartaches and tears" can still be found here.

 

The day was kinda dark in this "dyin' little town"

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Uploaded on April 29, 2010
Taken on May 24, 2008