Inside the divorce ranches where wealthy women kept their splits secret and ex-wives spent time with cowboys

While shotgun weddings are a Las Vegas staple, prominent people once flocked to Sin City and Reno, Nevada in pursuit of the exact opposite of marriage. 

From the 1930s to the 1970s, celebrities and socialites from across the country were eager for a 'Reno-vation' - six-week stay at a luxurious dude ranch while awaiting divorce.

Nevada was known for having more relaxed divorce laws than most other states, but Great Depression-era efforts to save the state's economy added fuel to the fire. 

In fact, providing divorces was an earlier draw to the state than even the lure of Vegas. 

'Nevada got into the migratory divorce game back in the 19th century as a way of getting people to come to the state - there wasn't a whole lot there,' author, artist and historian Peggy Wynne Borgman told the DailyMail.com.

In 1931, Nevada Governor Fred B. Balzar passed two bills that drastically shifted the western state's trajectory. 

The first - and better known of the two -  was the 'wide-open' gambling bill that made Nevada the first state to legalize betting, contributing to the tourist empire that emerged in Los Vegas. 

Balzar also gave the greenlight to what was informally known as the 'quickie' divorce act, which loosened the state's already liberal divorce rules and made marital splits speedier and more obtainable. 

Nevada's minimum residency requirement in order to file for divorce was slashed from six months to just six weeks. 

The bill added a 'catchall' ground for divorce that many used as their reasoning, 'extreme cruelty entirely mental in nature,' according to the City of Los Vegas. 

These lenient standards piqued national interest. In other states, divorce was a year-long process in which one had to prove their spouse was cheating on them or had abandoned them. 

'That's what triggered the whole boom. The divorce ranches actually did exist prior to that, but after 1931 they really took off,' Borgman said.

'Even in marriages where both parties were in agreement about that, it was still a lot harder to get a divorce everywhere else except Nevada.'

During the 1930s alone, divorce contributed more than $3 million to Nevada's economy, according to Reno Divorce History. 

Within a month, Reno had established itself as the informal 'Divorce Capital of the World.' 

Starting in the 1930s, Reno motels, hotels and rental properties were packed to the brim with divorce seekers - mostly women - from across the country. 

But the far more glamorous - and costly - options were exclusive ranches frequented by East Coast socialites who wanted to keep their divorces under wraps. 

Borgman explained: 'It was this rustic vacation experience that a lot of these social-register types would come out and do.' 

Sitting on breathtaking lush green pastures, these retreats could cost up to $2,000. The bill was generally footed by the women's soon-to-be ex-husbands. 

Divorces cost about $150, and the filing fee in Reno was $35. Tallying up legal expenses, residency and additional costs, the entire ordeal it ended up being close to $4,000. 

Although they were exclusive and operators did their best to keep the guest's identities private, everyone knew what they were doing in Reno.

'Reno was shorthand for divorce,' Borgman explained. 'It was very hard if you were a celebrity to keep it under wraps. 

'If you got a divorce during that period, everyone knew you'd been in Reno.'

Although the industry boom began in Reno - Nevada's largest city at the time - Los Vegas followed suit the 1940s and 1950s after socialite Ria Langham stayed in Sin City awaiting divorce from her movie star husband, Clark Gable. 

Other high-profile individuals spent time at divorce ranches, including Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs, conductor Leopold Stokowski's wife, Errol Flynn's sister and British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor. 

New York Governor John Rockefeller sent his wife Mary to one so they could amicably end their marriage. Additionally, actress Rita Hayworth stayed at a ranch while divorcing Prince Aly Khan.

Catching wind of celebrity sightings and prominent people hiding out in Reno and Los Vegas, the cities became media magnets. 

Historian and curator Mella Harmon said in her Nevada Portals podcast: 'The divorce ranches, for the most part, were on the outskirts of town.

'These were places where people could although not completely evade the press, but have some level of privacy.'

Celebrity or not, ranch-dwellers were mandated to check in with the property's manager each day, that way they could vouch for them at the end of the six weeks that they stay in Nevada the whole time.  

The well-to-do guests spent their time shaking off their pristine and proper reputations while fishing, hunting and horseback riding.

When they were not connecting with nature, many were known to indulge in drinking, smoking, gambling and the occasional rendezvous with a ranch wrangler. 

'It was something that was known that was something that happened there - and women ended up marrying cowboys,' Borgman said, noting that only a few of those relationships lasted.

'The lady and the cowboy story was one of the tropes of the divorce ranch.

'Part of the allure - if you will - of the ranch was the staff and the wranglers who were there.'

Borgman referenced a memoir about Bill McGee, historian who was a wrangler at the most exclusive ranch in Reno, titled The Divorce Seekers. This book actually inspired Borgman to write her own titled The Better Half about the time period. 

The memoir details McGee's first night at the ranch, where one of the women staying there came to his room that night to sleep with him. 

'Here he was, at a ranch with a bunch of women and the odds were quite nice,' Borgman said while laughing. 

Other women, who were uninterested in shacking up with cowboys, brought along 'spares' with them to the six-week getaway. 

Spares, as Borgman described, were essentially back-up men that the women would marry once their divorce was made official. In Nevada, there was no mandated waiting period between marriages. 

Beth Ward, who grew up on her family's Whitney Ranch, told NPR in 2010 that many women brought these men along and called them 'cousins.' 

'They had somebody in the other room, waiting to walk down the aisle with,' Ward recalled.

'And six weeks later, of course, they were married.' 

Some women, Borgman explained, were so infatuated with the liberties of single life, they simply swore off men. 

'They had a very defined life,' she began. 'Once they tasted the freedom they had in those six weeks they just thought 'why would I go back to that.'' 

An East Coast ranch resident told the New York Times in 1963 that any stereotypes depicting resident as promiscuous or over-indulgent were false. 

'If the gambling places depended on us, they'd go out of business. A couple of dollars, that's about all we spend,' she said. 

Reno and Los Vegas' migrantary divorce economies fell apart in the 1970s when other states introduce the concept of 'no fault' divorces, essentially making divorce ranches obsolete. 

Los Vegas has since rebranded as a major tourist attraction for gambling and entertainment, with two of the former ranches - Twin Lakes and Floyd Lamb Park - now preserved as historical parks, according to the city's website.

Reno, however, essentially has none of those divorce-centered structures remaining, Borgan revealed.  

'Tying it into contemporary culture - most people don't realize that you couldn't just get a divorce,' she said.