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While the history of the Mustang Ranch is included below, this is a G Rated cache with a fire theme, since our first date was the actual burning in March.
HISTORY:
The brothel started out as a set of four double-wide trailers, run by Richard Bennet and initially called Mustang Bridge Ranch. Joe Conforte, who had owned several brothels in Nevada together with his wife, Sally Burgess Conforte, took over the Mustang Ranch in 1967. At this time, brothels were not explicitly illegal in Nevada, but some had been closed as public nuisances.
Conforte gained political influence in Storey County (by renting out cheap trailers and telling the renters how to vote) and persuaded county officials to pass a brothel-licensing ordinance, which came into effect in 1971.
The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the right of a county to legalize prostitution, and several counties followed suit. Conforte converted the trailers into a permanent structure with 54 bedrooms. Mustang I had a spa room with jacuzzi. The swimming pool was for adult play.
The prostitutes lived on the ranch during their whole shift, which lasted from several days to several weeks. In the 1970's the women were bikini clad. During their shift, they worked 12 hours per day, serving six customers per day on average. Women had to pay for their rooms and to vendors who came to the Ranch. Medicine and cosmetics were purchased by non-prostitute employees who lived in Sparks, Nevada. Doctors came to the ranch to do a pelvic exam and check for sexually transmitted diseases. The only time women were allowed out was during their menstruation. More than one woman would share the rent of an apartment in Reno or Sparks. Women not working on the ranch were not allowed in. Joe Conforte allowed out-parties for high rollers to take the women to Reno hotels. Joe and Sally Conforte were always friendly to regular customers.
Las Vegas reporter, Colin McKinlay, once visited Mustang to do one of the first reports ever allowed. He wrote, "The women were the most beautiful of any fantasy of man. The line-up contained the most pale of Nordic blonde to the midnight of ebony; a wide eyed waif and wrinkled senior; rail thin to pudgy; tall women stood next to near dwarfs, all to answer the buzzer". Joe Conforte kept his brothel stable with the most variety in Nevada.
As in other Nevada brothels, customers were buzzed in through a gate, chose a woman from a lineup in a lobby, and negotiated prices and services in the woman's room. She checked for any open sores or signs of veneral disease and tested the pre-ejaculatory fluid. A short negotiation as to the type of "party" the customer wanted. Typical prices ranged from $100 to $500 plus tips; Some women for bizarre acts approved by the Confortes could get up to $10,000 for a party. The house received half of anything the women made. The prices rose as the economy of the times. In the late 1960s, $25.00 for 30 minutes with half and half.
Many of the major league sports figures and men from the entertainment industry would come to the Mustang Ranch. After 1985, with advent of AIDS and Nevada State Law; customers were required to wear condoms for both intercourse and oral sex. The women were not allowed to reject a customer who was willing to pay the house minimum and stick to the rules. For the safety of the women every room had a hidden panic button. Gun towers and guards were there to keep the women in and strangers out.
The 1973 motion picture Charley Varrick contained a scene filmed at Mustang Ranch, with a cameo by Joe Conforte. In 1978, Robert Goralnick wrote and directed Mustang: The House That Joe Built.
Mapes Hotel, bellmen in Reno, directed men to the Mustang Ranch. Cab drivers typically received 10% of the money their customers spent at the ranch.
In 1976, the world class boxer Oscar Bonavena, (1942-1976) who was a former friend of Conforte's and probably had an affair with his wife Sally, was shot dead at the ranch by Conforte's body guard.
In 1982, Mustang II with 48 bedrooms was built a hundred meters away from Mustang I. A bit smaller and not as luxurious as Mustang I, mostly new women and women demoted from Mustang I for some infraction worked there.
The last remaining building on the grounds where the infamous Mustang Ranch brothel once stood went up in flames on March 25, 2007. The 48-room, 20,000-square-foot structure known as the Mustang Ranch II annex was destroyed as part of a firefighting training exercise
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(Decrypt)
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