At racy ‘divorce ranches,’ liberated singles partied with cowboys while waiting on their papers
Every ranch hand’s dream job
Six weeks was more than enough time to get a divorce, spend thousands of dollars, have an affair, and maybe find a new husband. This was not the tabloids; this was midcentury Reno, Nevada.
Reno was famous for its “cure,” also known as a quickie divorce that required merely six weeks of state residency and no proof of adultery, a common requirement in other states. Reno divorce-seekers (mostly women) passed the time at glorified dude ranches, which offered the typical horseback riding and cow-milking, but also hunky cowboys willing to roll in the hay. Legend goes that some of the emancipated ladies even ran off with the ranch hands themselves.
One ranch south of Reno, called the Lazy Me, was nicknamed the “Lay Me Easy” for its curative powers.
“What was going on on those dude ranches — wouldn’t that be the job for a young fellow like me to have? Whether I could ride a horse or not didn’t make any difference,” said Neal Cobb, who contributed to the 2004 photo memoir The Divorce Seekers.
The Flying ME Ranch was the most exclusive resort in the region. High-profile guests flocked to the estate with an understanding of discretion. They could flirt, drink, dance, and cavort in ways mainstream society disapproved of. Many called it their “Reno-vation.” And with an average cost of stay around $1,500 (roughly $15,000 in current dollars) for six weeks of leisure, it seemed everyone profited.
Reno had activated that revenue stream in 1931, when it reduced its six-month residency requirement to six weeks. By May of that year, so many people flooded the city’s divorce ranches that some had to camp on the banks of the Truckee River. The number of divorces rose from roughly 1,000 per year in the 1920s to 19,000 in 1946. At its peak, Reno earned $5 million per year from divorcees (equivalent to $50 million today). The region had pioneered the “migratory divorce trade.”
The culture of divorce and dalliance was so prevalent that a tourism industry sprung up around it. Besides the ranches, five-and-dime stores sold cheap rings which new divorcees would toss into the river near the Washoe County courthouse, which was colloquially known as “The House of Divide.” (In the 1970s, a dredge of the river turned up roughly 500 rings.) Visitors spent money at nearby attractions, consulted with local lawyers, and hired babysitters to look after their kids while they gambled at the casinos, which were also legal.
“A lot of people talk about how welcoming Reno was and how nice it was to come and not be the subject of a scandal because you were getting divorced,” said Alicia Barber, a former National Park Service historian. “It was so common here. It was part of the culture.”
“There wasn’t an unhappy time for them,” remember sisters Beth Ward and Robbie McBride, who grew up on Whitney Ranch. There, a female guest may check in with her male “cousin,” who stayed in a separate room. It was common for partners to bring their “spares,” whom they would marry immediately following the dissolution of their previous marriage. According to The Divorce Seekers, socialite Maggie Astor stayed at The Flying ME intending to divorce her husband and marry her spare; instead, she eloped with a local museum operator.
Meanwhile, Hollywood devoured Reno’s sex and lore. Pulp novels published in the 1940s had titles like Reno Rendezvous, Whirlpool of Reno, and Temporary Address: Reno. Everyone from starlet Mary Pickford to writer Arthur Miller got divorced in the state. In fact, Miller married Marilyn Monroe three weeks after leaving Reno. And in 1961, he wrote The Misfits, which starred Monroe, whose character fell for a local cowboy played by Clark Gable.
By the 1960s, however, other states had softened their divorce laws to the point that Reno’s industry became a mere memory. The divorce ranches closed or rebranded. Only a few cowboys remain to brag about their brief affairs — only now they’re not quite as hunky.
