This story originally appeared in the 2025 Locals’ Guidebook featuring the Best of Jackson Hole. Pick up a copy today!
WILSON, Wyo. — Margaret “Muggs” Jane Schultz has overseen the daily operations at Trail Creek Ranch in Wilson for over 70 years, tackling tasks with an endless energy to learn.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Muggs, Marian “Sis” McKean Wigglesworth and original Trail Creek Ranch owner Elizabeth “Betty” Woolsey built the guest ranch into one of the original dude ranches in the valley. Muggs shared some of her earliest memories living and working in the valley.
In 1931, when Muggs was just 2 years old, her parents moved to Jackson to work in the restaurant business. Her parents owned and operated Eddie’s Cafe for close to 20 years, according to Muggs.
Muggs was working as a waitress at the Wort Hotel when she first met Woolsey, who was captain of the first women’s Olympic ski team in 1936. Woolsey bought the first parcel of Trail Creek Ranch in 1943, eventually expanding the ranch property to 275 acres. Woolsey would stop into the Wort with her guests after a morning of backcountry skiing and an afternoon of skiing at Snow King. After a while, Betty invited Muggs to ski with her and the guests.
“Betty had an extra pair of soft skis,” Muggs says. “She said that she would loan them to me. Betty would have me ski as a ‘sweep’ to help the guests if they fell behind.”
At that time, Muggs needed to find a new location to move a couple of her horses. Woolsey invited Muggs to move her horses in with the others at Trail Creek. To help take care of the horses, Muggs moved into one of the guest buildings on the ranch during the summers. Soon she was helping in many different capacities on the ranch.
“Betty had an army Jeep,” Muggs says. “She turned it over to me because I knew how to drive. I used chains to pull broken-down buildings. I dragged them all over and put them into piles. That was a novelty to me … I was 19 or 20 years old.”
Around 1952, Muggs moved full-time onto the full-service dude ranch, working many maintenance and construction jobs that included repairing fences, feeding horses, managing the work crew and training employees. Muggs says that she built an addition onto Woolsey’s cabin and added a sleeping porch to Wyllis Cabin, which is still in use as a guest cabin today. She and Sis also built the smaller barn located on the ranch. Muggs says that she learned carpentry while on the job.
Over the years, almost 40 horses joined the herd, prompting Muggs to learn how to farm hay. When extra land became available, the ranch expanded its acreage, allowing for the space to grow hay so they wouldn’t have to purchase bales in Idaho.
“We were going to raise our own hay,” Muggs says. “Betty wanted to cut her own field. So, we went out and bought a new tractor, a new mower — the works.”
Muggs says that her ranching neighbors, Gib Scott and the Hardemans, were willing to teach her how to operate the large machinery. She says that she eventually learned how to attach the rake on the back of the mower to move cut hay into long rows.
“It took us half the summer to learn how to use the mower that we bought,” Muggs says. “The rake was hooked up forward and not backward. I had never used a tractor before, but a tractor is like a car. I thought it was all great fun. I could be a rancher now, along with all of the other people that we knew.”
Muggs explains that before there was modern machinery, there was an art form to stacking hay. She says that a team of horses and a loader with a hydraulic pulley were used to pile up the haystacks, which sat out to dry for at least 24 hours. She says that pitchforks were needed to push up the sides of a pile to properly lay down the hay.
“You can’t just throw a pile of hay on top of a pile of hay,” Muggs says. “You have to stack hay as nicely as you can, and then round it off at the top so it doesn’t fall over.”
Muggs says that she rarely saw a woman working in a hay field, with the exception of her neighbor Pat Hardeman and Pat’s sister, Laurel.
She says that men would say, “How come you girls are doing that?” She would say in response, “It doesn’t take a man to do every job in the world.” Muggs added, “Once the war started, it didn’t take a man to do a hell of a lot of jobs that women weren’t allowed to do. If you want to learn to do it, you’ll do it.”
She stepped in for the horse wranglers when needed, which entailed catching horses in the corral, brushing and saddling them, and teaching riding lessons in the arena.
Muggs remembers many wealthy women who moved to the region back in the day, who bought land and married cowboy husbands to do the ranch work. Muggs says that she never wanted a cowboy husband.
“I had a chance to get married a half a dozen times,” Muggs says. “I figured that I had enough nieces and nephews around … and we had an awful lot of nice people at the ranch. I got to go to a lot of places. It was just easier to stay single. I just saw too many complications the other way. I’m just as happy out there on a tractor as I am sitting home and taking care of a kid.”
Muggs says she has enjoyed meeting people from all over who have come to the ranch over the years.
“I met so many nice people in this world,” Muggs says. “A lot of our guests have come back. It was our pleasure to show them a good time. We have guests now who are in their 80s and 90s, and they used to come as young people.”
Muggs remembers a wrangler who worked on the ranch in 1953, who recently came back for a visit. She says that employees that visit over the years often say that their years spent at the ranch were the best of their life. The timeless quality to the ranch is valued by its visitors to this day.
“A lady came out on the balcony and she says to me, ‘Muggs, I want to thank you very much for still keeping this place the way it was when I was here as a kid.’”
Before her death in 1997, Woolsey arranged for the ranch to be placed in a conservation easement with the Jackson Hole Land Trust to protect it from future development. Woolsey made sure that Muggs would be able to live the rest of her life at Trail Creek Ranch, as well as serve as a member of the ranch’s board.
In 1989, Alexandra Menolascino came to Trail Creek Ranch working in just about every capacity. Since Betty’s death, Muggs and Menolascino have been managing the ranch, with Menolascino taking on the role of general manager and caretaker. Trail Creek Ranch transitioned from a dude ranch to a bed and breakfast in 2000, and later to a guest ranch in 2005.
According to Menolascino, Muggs mowed the fields and baled hay until she was 88 years old. With her cabin overlooking the horse pasture, Muggs says that she still helps to oversee the care of the horses, visits with guests and advises on operations. At 96 years old, Muggs isn’t stopping anytime soon.
