My grandfather was born in Greenwood, Wisc in 1899. In his teens, he contracted some kind of illness, consumption? so he was sent to live for the summer in White Sulpher Springs for medicinal purposes with his Aunt Ruperta. He described his trip out west including changing trains and waiting at Ringling for the " jerkwater little train " to take him the rest of the way to White Sulfer Springs.
He got a part time job at the local car dealer/filling station which had a gas pump where you manually pumped the gas up into a 4 or 5 gallon glass reservior on top of the pump, then gravity feed the car. A big black car with a "real long hood" came one time and took so many hand pumps to fill that he almost forgot. What he did remember was meeting the owner, Richard Ringling from Baraboo, Wisconsin (as in Barnum and Bailey) who was out visiting his ranching property in the area.
I drove the highway from Ringling to WSS in the late 1990's and on the east side of the highway I saw a few ties from from the old line.

Enjoy your trip out west. I always look forward to the next one!