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TRAVEL LOS ANGELES TIMES HER WORLD Hoping to save the wild Mustang luJBy Su s a n Sp a n o Staff Writer Y travels have taken me to hun­dreds of muse­ums, on topics as diverse as bras beer. Aside from reading, gpiuseum s are the best way for |g39ie/ldf|iiiirn' something new, es-when the subject seems or arcane. So I was in- ^iijrigued when I learned that a drive is on to turn the Mustang Ranch, Nevada’s first legal ’brothel, into a museum of prosti­tution. Its history alone could fill a museum. The Mustang, about 15 miles east of Reno, opened in 1967, four years before Nevada started a social experiment unique in the U.S. by legalizing the brothel business in rural counties only. The idea was to keep organized prostitution out of Las Vegas. Owner Joseph Conforte gave turkeys to the III! poor, let Desert Storm vets use the ranch’s services free and later fled the country to escape prosecution for tax evasion. He’s now living — and, some say, run­ning brothels —in Brazil. The pink, neon-ifluminated Mustang was seized and sold by the Internal Revenue Service. It continued to run for a time be­fore the IRS realized the new owners were funneling proceeds to Conforte in Brazil. In 1S>91, IRS agents arrived with pad­locks and auctioned off the con­tents, which included match­books and wine bottles with the ranch logo: a naked cowgirl bay­ing at the moon. Then the 340- acre property was transferred to the federal Bureau of Land Man­agement, which intended to use it to help manage periodic flood­ing on the Truckee River and to connect two BLM parcels con­tiguous to the ranch. The BLM wants to keep the ranch undeveloped, says Terry Randolph, Mustang Ranch project coordinator for the BLM. But first, the buildings have to go, and the BLM doesn’t have the $100,000 needed to demolish them. The agency’s problem was complicated when it discovered the structures have mold and as­bestos. So earlier this year, the agency put the bordello up for sale on EBay, the online auction service. The highest bid, placed by northern Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hof, was $15,000, which the BLM didn’t accept. Hof, who bought a lot of the Mustang Ranch memorabilia during the IRS auction, wants to move the parlor and several wings to his nearby Moonlite Bunny Ranch, where, he says, they will become a museum dedi­cated to saving Nevada’s wild horses and to prostitution — in that order. When I asked him who would visit, he said, “Everyone. Every­one is curious about sex.... We get 10 to 15 families a day parked in front of the Bunny Ranch, tak­ing pictures of Grandpa by the sign.” Mustang Ranch Museum Inc., a not-for-profit organiza­tion made up primarily of former ranch employees, didn’t bid. Shamel Silvey, the group’s president, says the organization doesn’t have enough money to move the place, even if it could afford to buy it. Silvey wants the ranch to stay where it is and re­open as a museum devoted to the history and sociology of pros­titution. Her organization is try­ing to get it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The BLM and the state researched the property to determine whether it was eligible for listing. It wasn’t, chiefly because the Mustang Ranch is less than 50 years old, a criterion for inclu­sion. Structures of recent vin­tage can qualify if they’re shown to be of superior importance. Silvey thinks the ranch is im­portant and envisions the mu­seum as a place that would tell the stories of the prostitutes who Ranch, that is __________ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2003 L7 worked there. “This may not be pretty, but it’s history,” she says. Kathryn Hausbeck, an asso­ciate professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and coauthor of an up­coming book on prostitution in Nevada, thinks the Mustang Ranch could make a great mu­seum. “Whether we want to ad­mit it or not, prostitution played an important part in the history of the West. If [a museum] was done right, without objectifying or exploiting women, it could help us figure out prostitution policy in the future.” It wouldn’t be the first bor­dello museum. There’s one in the silver mining boomtown of Wal­lace, Idaho, and in Butte, Mont., the 1895 Dumas Brothel Mu­seum displays vintage “Merry Widow” condom tins. In Aus­tralia, where prostitution is legal, Club 181 in the western desert town of Kalgoorlie is a museum in a working bordello. And, of course, anybody interested can take a tour of the red-light dis­trict in Amsterdam. As for the Mustang Ranch, its future hangs in the balance. Last week, the BLM listed it on EBay again, with all BLM claims to the trademark included to sweeten the pot. That interests Hof, who Would like to use the Mustang Ranch name on his Miss Kitty’s Cathouse near Carson City. Meanwhile, Silvey plans to appeal to the National Register ofHistoric Places in Washington, D.C., so the ranch can be pre­served on-site. So what makes a place of su­perior importance? What aspects of our history are worth remembering? In Las Vegas, Mayor Oscar Goodman has advocated the creation of a Mafia museum in the city’s old federal building. I, for one, would visit. But then, I would visit the Mustang Ranch if it ever opened as a museum. And if I had some spare cash, I just might bid on the place.