Hoping to save the wild Mustang -- Ranch, that is

My travels have taken me to hundreds of museums, on topics as diverse as bras and beer. Aside from reading, museums are the best way for me to learn something new, especially when the subject seems strange or arcane. So I was intrigued 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 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-illuminated 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 1991, 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.