No, despite what a Wyoming atlas might say, the “Shemale Brothers Ranch” in Albany County isn’t a real place.
What initially seemed like a case of 19th century gender-bending, when the ranch was founded, turned out to most probably be a misprint in the 2009 6th Edition of the DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer of Wyoming.
The property is actually the “Schmale Brothers Ranch” and is part of a network of ranches dating back to the 1880s. A later edition of the atlas makes that correction, said Vince Meyer of Cheyenne, who noticed the misnamed place in the atlas.
But just when the correction was made is unclear. The 2011 edition of the same gazetteer in the main branch of the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne also has the misprint.
Meyer told Cowboy State Daily he assumes that was the result of either a simple typo or a “bored cartographer” messing around with that page.
Unexpected Thing To Find
Meyer said he enjoys exploring and backpacking all over Wyoming, and is always researching new places to go.
After recently setting his sights on adventure in the Shirly Basin and nearby, isolated parts of Albany County, he turned to one of his favorite research tools: A full-sized atlas.
Book atlases were once a staple for nearly every outdoors enthusiast and road-tripper. They’ve since been largely replaced by map apps on cellphones, tablets and computers.
Electronic devices are great for getting the overall picture, Meyer said. But to really get down to the nitty-gritty lay of the land, particularly in Wyoming’s most remote areas, nothing beats the scale and detail of a printed map.
“You can’t replace that kind of map or scale if you’re trying to plan something out in detail,” Meyer said. “Especially if you’re in Wyoming’s backcountry and you’ve got long distances between towns or gas stations.”
And so it was during his research into Albany County and the Shirley Basin that he came across a tiny spot in an obscure corner of private land northeast of Laramie called “Shemale Bros. Ranch.”
“It was just a funny thing to find on a map,” he said. “I showed it to a couple of people, and we got a laugh out of it.”
True History
The oddity was enough to pique his interest. So, Meyer began looking for references to a “Shemale Ranch” in other atlases, and even other states.
“I looked at another company’s book map, and there was no indication (of such a place),” he said. “I did some research, and nothing came up. I figured, maybe in Nevada there’s a ‘Shemale Ranch?’ But nothing came up.”
He did, however, find out some of the probable true history of the Schmale Brothers Ranch at the same spot on apparently correct maps.
It’s evidently part of a network of ranchers that started springing up in Albany County the late 19th century. The Schmale Ranch is listed as one of the properties that was eventually incorporated into the larger Q Creek Ranch, founded in the 1880s, according to the Q Creek Ranch’s website.
The University of Wyoming also lists an “Amanda S. And Oscar W. Schmale Scholarship” under its WyoScholarships program. According to UW, Oscar and Amanda Schmale, along with Oscar’s brother Emil, owned ranch property in the Bosler area. That’s near where the “Shemale/Schmale” site is listed in Meyer’s atlases.
Nobody Complained To The State
If anybody else noticed the “Shemale” typo, they weren’t upset enough about it to call the state, according to the Maps and Records Division of the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments.
When contacted by Cowboy State Daily, the office reported it had received no notification of an Albany County property being mislabeled as “Shemale Bros. Ranch.”
State mapmakers diligently cross-check each other’s work, so mistakes are rare, but not entirely unheard of.
A request for comment from the DeLorme company wasn’t answered by publication time.
Can’t Get There From Here?
Meyer said he’d like to see the site for himself someday, but it’s apparently still in the middle of a sizable chunk of private property. And even detailed atlases don’t indicate if existing roads allow access to it.
“It’s impossible to tell if some of those roads that go through it on the map are public thoroughfares, or if they’re gated off,” he said.
For now, it’ll have to be enough to have a little fun with a curiously misnamed place in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
