By 1909, however, Reno, Nevada was, and was happy to be, "the divorce capital of the world." At that time, only six months in Nevada were sufficient to establish Nevada residency, and the Nevada courts, well aware of the contribution of divorce seekers to Nevada's hospitality industry, accepted the resident's uncorroborated statement that grounds for divorce, usually "extreme cruelty," existed. In 1927, the Nevada Legislature, "in response to a perceived threat to Reno’s divorce supremacy from France and Mexico and a divorce-trade war that had been going on since the end of World War I between Nevada, Idaho, and Arkansas," changed the residency period to three months, and in 1931, the same Legislature that voted in "wide-open gambling" dropped it to six weeks. Providing accommodations and other amenities for visitors, who could not leave Nevada during the six weeks, became a major Reno industry; greeters met the arriving trains, and there were a variety of divorce ranches. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Williams v. North Carolina (1942), ruled that other states had to recognize these divorces, under the "full faith and credit" clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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