Travelers have relied on the Boswell Road in southeast Wyoming’s Snowy Range since before Wyoming was a state, but it remains officially closed because nobody can figure out who actually owns it.
That’s left recreationalists upset as another busy summer season begins.
Two developers who bought 161 acres of old Ox Yoke Ranchproperty along the road in hopes of selling home sites there said their project has stalled because of the road’s murky status.
County, Forest Service Won’t Claim Road
Boswell Road dates back to a wagon route established in the 1870s.
It’s about 10.75 miles long and runs east/west from the Boswell Ranch south of Jelm, Wyoming, to Mountain Home. Two sections cross into Colorado before coming back into Wyoming, and 2.5 miles of the road crosses four parcels of private land.
It's long been a favorite route for campers, hunters and other outdoors enthusiasts.
It was technically closed last year, although numerous people just kept using it.
On June 6, the Albany County Sheriff’s Office posted a notice that the road is still closed to the public.
The notice cites a 2023 resolution from the Albany County Commission stating that Boswell Road isn’t a county road.
At one time, the U.S. Forest Service and county worked together to maintain Boswell Road.
But the Forest Service no longer claims the road either.
“I can confirm that the Forest Service position on the road remains unchanged. It is not a National Forest System road,” Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland spokesman Aaron Voos told Cowboy State Daily.
“When contacted by the public, we communicate alternate routes to access that area,” he added.
Resentment From Public
The developers, Nebraska residents Rocky Ryder and Chad Hrbek, put a locked gate across the road at their property line.
They told Cowboy State Daily that’s not out of spite for the public.
Rather, it’s to protect themselves against potential liability and to try prompting the Albany County government and/or the Forest Service to finally settle the road’s jurisdiction.
“We hate keeping anyone out,” Hrbek said. “We just put in that gate to bring the attention of the county and Forest Service.”
But the gate has still drawn the ire of recreationists accustomed to using the road to access National Forest and Bureau of Land Management land.
Ryder spends several days each week living out of a camper on the property and said that some people have gotten nasty toward him about the locked gate.
Locks on the gate were cut early Sunday, he said.
But they want officials to settle the matter of the road’s status firstand for the county to start maintaining it again.
“We have no problem with the public coming through, if the county would just suck it up and do something,” Ryder said.
Hrbek said that the road hasn’t been maintained and is getting rough.
So, he and Ryder worry that if people damaged their vehicles driving on the road or had an accident that resulted in somebody getting hurt or killed, they’d be held liable.
Ryder said they let people pass through the property last year, but this year decided that the liability risk was too great, and the county needs to start maintaining the road again.
“We hope that with the gate this year, enough people will complain” to prompt officials into action, he said.
Big Investment
They bought the property about four years ago and understood that at the time that Boswell Road was a county road, Ryder said.
They removed numerous old mobile homes from the site, but kept some of the historic buildings, including a cabin thought to date back to the 1850s.
So far, they’ve invested about $1.5 million to $1.8 million in the project and had all of the necessary permits ready to start selling properties, Ryder said.
Then they found out that they couldn’t sell any home site parcels because, from a legal standpoint, there’s no access to the property.
“You can’t sell a piece of property with no access,” he said.
Ryder said they recently sold off about $500,000 worth of construction equipment that they intended to use to start preparing 5-acre properties for home construction.
“What’s the point of having equipment sitting around that you’re not using?” said Ryder.
Commissioner: Let’s Get This Settled
Albany County Commission Chairwoman Terri Jones told Cowboy State Daily that she favors Boswell Road officially becoming a county road.
But with the commission unable to reach a consensus on the matter, Jones said it will probably take a “grass roots” effort from property owners along the road.
She favors property owners coming together and presenting the commission with a plan to move forward, rather than the commission handing down orders.
“When the government gets too pushy like that, it leaves a bad taste in peoples’ mouths,” she said. “We’re going to get that road open again at some point.”
Contact Mark Heinz at mark@cowboystatedaily.com
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
